


The Only Mystery

by terebi_me



Series: The Only Mystery [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst and Humor, Banter, Consensual Kink, Daddy Kink, Dom/sub Play, Enthusiastic Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Feels, Feminist Themes, Forced Orgasm, Humor, Incest Play, Masturbation, Miscarriage, Multi, No Romance, Non-Penetrative Sex, Non-Penetrative Sex Toys, Oral Sex, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pregnancy, Sex Is Fun, Sexual Fantasy, Sexual Roleplay, Shameless Smut, The Oncoming Storm, Vaginal Fingering, that escalated quickly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2018-12-09 20:54:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 44,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11676903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terebi_me/pseuds/terebi_me
Summary: Ambitious "ordinary girl" Clara works at a small liberal-arts university in the middle of nowhere, United States. Her entire world is disrupted when she meets the Doctor, a stern, charismatic Scottish visiting professor, and he takes her along on a mind-bending journey into sexual possibility, informed consent, and shattered boundaries. But boy, does he have emotional baggage from his past, to such an extent that Clara just might not be able to quip her way free...





	1. Out of the Blue

**Author's Note:**

> My first attempt at DW fic. A work in progress. This "Doctor" has many overtones of Malcolm Tucker; please to forgive. Has been lightly beta'd, but not Britpicked (or should I say "Scotpicked"?). 
> 
> Feedback is life!

A bit of background, first.

I’m Clara. I’m really just an ordinary girl, but living a sort of extraordinary life. I’m from Blackpool, but I’ve done quite a bit of traveling and working in other countries. I’ve a sort of academic administrative dogsbody, doing this and that in exchange for university credits. I did a bit of time in the Hebrides, in northern Finland (best internet access I ever saw), in a girls’ school in Puna, India, and another in Kinshasa. I’m the girl who shows up to places with a suitcase filled with cotton maxi-pads, water filtration tablets, and a whiteboard. Oh, and a book of star charts, and an iPod full of musical theater. When I leave my suitcase is empty and I’ve got at least a classroom full of kids who can sing all the songs from _Cabaret_ and know the basic equations of thermodynamics. Last spring, with my masters’ degree in education (with honors), I managed to score a proper job at a uni—a college—in America. That had been my hope all along, to get a post in a place that has proper bog roll, penicillin, and pizza, where my dreams of someday becoming the dean or the president of some school where women learn the sciences. STEM, they call it here.

Life at Optikon’s a bit good, but I’m still getting used to it.

I’ve been here for six weeks. Barely started my new job yet. It’s the end of summer, and the students have yet to begin arriving. I’ve got a place to live, a room in a big house with a married couple who I met in Oulu, but besides them, and the Morrises, I haven’t yet made any friends. I’ll get there, I’m sure, and even if I don’t I’ll be fine. Mike Morris is the director of the STEM department at Optikon College, and he hired me, and he’s my proper mate, and his wife Jen is, too; if it’s only ever them, socially, I’ll manage.

Some, y’know, shagging company wouldn’t be too bad, though. It’s been a while. I’m all right without that, as well, but… it’s been since the Hebrides. Lovely Matt, with the big forehead and the specs and the stupid bow tie. Lovely Matt, who was married and didn’t tell me until after I pounced on him and got off with him and fell in love with him, like an imbecile. I felt so stupid, falling for a professor like that. I fled to Finland in the middle of winter, if that tells you how desperate I was to get away from the massive pile of emotional plops I’d fallen in, face first. Because also everyone knew what I’d done. The grapevine in that tiny village dripped blood. I couldn’t hear a Scots accent without flinching.

Right, then; here we are now. The Morrises have thrown a party to welcome everyone back for the term—the “school year”, they call it—and their big sprawling ranch house is full of instructors and college staff members, all comfortably on the piss on what might be the last properly hot night of the year. I wander around, plastering a bright smile on my face every time anyone looks my way, but no one talks to me, and for once, I can’t think of anything to say.

I’ve gotten to the point in the party where I’ve started to drink too much out of sheer nervousness, hoping to wash away the awkwardness under a tide of chardonnay (with ice cubes in; I’m in America now, do as the Romans do, and it is a hot night, after all). I decide to take my chances with more drink rather than conceding defeat after less than an hour, so I head back towards the kitchen—again—to top up my glass. On my way there, Mike Morris grabs my elbow.

He beams at me, cheeks aglow with alcohol cheer, his tie jauntily loosened. He loves a good party, does our Mike. “Clara! Perfect.”

“Thanks for saying so,” I quip back, glad to see a friendly face.

“Just who I wanted to see. I’ve been wanting to get you two together for ages now. Doctor, this is Clara. She’s our new STEM department admin. And—Clara, this is the Doctor.”

The man standing by Mike stares back, blankly, coldly, as if I’m an empty cardboard box, and he’d been told that he was getting a pony. Affronted, I’d call it. This man that Mike calls the Doctor is wearing all black clothing, black trousers, a suit jacket that doesn’t match them, and a T-shirt with a print faded to intelligibility. I’ve no idea how he can bear the heat dressed like that, but he seems impervious. Maybe it’s natural cold-bloodedness.

I mean, he’s an old man. Not bent or infirm or anything, but his face is a symphony of wrinkles and his thick, copious curly hair has only a few dark strands left in the gray. Usually chaps that age wear cloth caps and, oh, I don’t know, track suits, if Blackpool taught me anything. His eyes, impressively large, the color of deep water, the dark non-color of a river on a cloudy day, flick quickly over me, scanning, assessing. Maybe judging. I don’t think I pass muster.

I glance at Mike in confusion. Is he having me on? Pranks are not beneath him. But Mike only grins in sincere delight. “I thought you two should meet,” he says.

“All right?” I said offhandedly, trying to be casual. I hadn’t felt so oddly dismissed, even dressed-down, with a single look since I’d gone to college myself when I was fifteen, and showed up on my first day with green hair and fishnet tights. The way the Doctor is looking at me, it’s like he knew that I had done that once, and he thought it was very vulgar. “Doctor what?”

The Doctor looks at Mike. Mike, a friendly chap who likes a drink, in charge of the sciences division of an internationally ranked private college, and the Doctor frowns sourly at him like Mike’s an grubby schoolboy picking his nose.

“In fact, we _have_ met,” the Doctor says. “Last week. During the campus tour.”

_Durrrrrh-enk t’ cay-mpoos tur._ Oh, fucking hell. No one should ever sound so fucking Scottish. And indignant. Arch. Stentorian is the word. _Loo_ vowels and consonants shaggy as terriers. Not the tangly half-Gaelic mutter of the Hebrides; this bloke’s urban, one hundred percent pure middle-class Glasgow. I never thought I’d hear the like again.

It takes a second for me to grasp what he’d actually said.

_We_ have _met._

Somehow he remembered me.

“Oh—yeah, right,” I reply, sounding a bit breathless. “I remember you as well.”

Just barely. Two or three seconds’ view of a seemingly elderly geezer in different department; he hadn’t really made much impression. He’d been sitting down in an office behind a desk, and hadn’t even looked up at us as we passed. He had just been any other instructor. “We didn’t really meet, as such,” I add.

“Semantics,” says the Doctor crisply.

“Excellent. I figured you two would get along,” says Mike, all smiles. “Since you’re both British and everything.”

“I’m Scottish,” says the Doctor, the corners of his mouth downturned.

Mike just laughs at that. Seems they’ve done this routine before. The Doctor just sort of sneers. A perfect Scots sneer of utter contempt, angled down against me like a spotlight. I suddenly feel very short. (I am short.) And underdressed, in a clingy purple vest and pleated miniskirt, which seemed like such a fun idea earlier. I become aware of my armpits, my ankles, the back of my neck. I haven’t got much leg, but what I have is out on display.

In that moment, I finally understand the appeal of wearing a burkha.

He doesn’t just undress me with his eyes—he tears the clothes off and burns them.

“Well, hi,” I say, desperate to break the silence.“I’m Clara Oswald. I’m—from Blackpool. But I went to King’s College. I’ve a masters’, and everything.” I feel hot and stuffy; I must be blushing like a tomato. What a disaster. “Sorry, excuse me,” I beg, turning round and rushing toward the kitchen. On my way, I bump into an end table with one of my problematic knees. I don’t pause; all I need is to get _away_ from him.

Being near him feels like licking a battery.

A motor battery.

I’m bothered.

In the kitchen I refill my wine glass and take a breather, trying to clear my head. Jen Morris stands at the cooker, bringing out another sheet of appetizers. She’s been at that all night, and there is actual sweat dripping down her face. “Ah! Clara, good,” she says. “Come here and grab that blue tray for me, would you?”

I hand her a kitchen towel, and do as she asks, grateful to have something to do with my hands for a moment besides lift the glass to my face. “You look a little rattled,” she says, sliding what looks like tiny tarts onto the tray. “You okay?”

“Hmm,” I say, wrinkling my nose, and decide to be frank. “So, um. The Doctor. What’s his name?”

“Uh- _huh_ ,” she replies knowingly. “I’ll let him tell you that.”

“What’s that about?” I demand, but she just chuckles at me. “Mike just displayed me to him, like, Oi, check it out, I’ve got another British person right here.” Jennifer laughs at my bad imitation of an American accent. “He’s a bit, erm, intense, isn’t he?”

“Oh, I’d say more than a bit. Don’t worry about him, though. He’s basically harmless, even if he can kinda look like Dracula sometimes. I’ve been trying to fatten him up all year, but it just won’t take.” She arranges some radishes on the tray. “Do you cook? Maybe you could give it a try.”

“What? No.” I grab a radish that she hasn’t yet tucked into place. “What’s his story, though? How’s a—a mad Scotsman end up in a town like this?”

“You might equally ask, how does a nice girl from Blackpool end up in a town like this? Middle of nowhere, half an hour on the freeway just to get to some outlet malls. Professional opportunity. We had an opening in our department for a visiting professor. The Doctor’s so interdisciplinary he’s leading classes in two different divisions: art and computer science. One of _those_ guys. And I think he’s teaching a materials science class in your neck of the school; he’s been into 3D printing since the earliest days. He’s bounced around to five different schools in the US; we’re just the latest. It’s not likely he’s going to be tenured anywhere, so he just goes wherever, teaches History of Wearable Technology, and has about ten other classes he can just throw in wherever there’s room. He won a big award for his Wearable Tech course a couple of years ago; it’s been a decent calling card. We’re lucky to get him.”

“Why didn’t he just stay where he started?” I pick up one of the tarts, which is still too hot to eat just yet, and the pastry immediately slicks my fingers with molten butter.

“Wanderlust, maybe? He’s sort of like a professional visiting professor. Real transient kinda life. I sure couldn’t stand it, but I’ve lived in this town all my life. The Doctor’s the opposite. He does a year here, two years there, gets a grant to study something else somewhere else. Also, he hasn’t got any long-term, major attachments, so it’s a lot easier for him.”

“Oh?” I prompt. “No family, then?”

Jennifer leans close, as eager to spread gossip as I am to hear it. “He’s a divorcé _and_ a widower,” she says conspiratorially. “His first wife left him and took the kid, and his second wife died. Suicide.”

“Blimey,” I say, taking a drink of wine. No wonder he’s so grim. “When was that?”

“Oh, a good ten or so years ago, with his second wife. Maybe longer. His first marriage was a good thirty years back. His daughter’s your age now.” Jennifer sighs and pours herself a glass of wine. “Anyway, don’t let him spook you. He and Mike have been friends for ages. And he’s a sweetheart underneath. He’s just very vicious, and impatient, and smart—and funny, once you figure out his sense of humor. You ask me, I think he’s got some kind of secret, inner pain,” she adds with a dramatic gesture and roll of the eyes.

“What, like diverticulitis?” I quip, so that I don’t have to think about it. Him. That’s a lot of loss on one man’s shoulders. He might not even be that old; grief literally hits you in the face, in my experience. Those eyes, like mirrors, hiding what’s underneath. Maybe I only saw my own discomfort reflected back. On the other hand, he’s got a kid my age. He’s old.

Jennifer puts her hand on my shoulder. “Oh, Clara. You two should get to be friends. I bonded like crazy with the only American I could find when I was overseas. You can talk about tea and, I dunno, Sainsbury’s.” She smiles at me and raises her eyebrows. “Now get back out there. Take a tray. Make yourself useful.”

I take the tray of tarts out to the main room and set them down. I see the Doctor across the room, staring right at me as I walk through the doorway, as if he’s been waiting for me to appear. He’s not sneering anymore; now, he’s just staring at me, fixedly, unmoving, his big, gleaming eyes catching the light of a nearby candle. He’s as intent as if I am not merely the only person in the room, but the only thing that exists worth looking at. It’s a horrible amount of pressure, all compressed to a point, going straight through me, the pin that mounts the butterfly.

I stare back, almost afraid to look away.

He looks me over again. It’s not a sort of pervy, oily glance; not a leer. He is sizing me up. Maybe appreciating what he sees. I mean, I’m fit; lots of men look at me; my skirt makes my stumpy legs look coltish and slender. I’m not bad. I wish I were wearing high heels, but it can’t be helped, and I wasn’t actually on the pull—I just wanted to come to a party and meet some colleagues socially and eat Jen’s hors d’oeuvres and get a bit lit up. My palate itches, and I start rubbing it with the tip my tongue.

The Doctor’s thick, arched gray eyebrows quirk and his eyes crinkle at the edges. It’s almost a smile, but not quite. I ‘d like to see him actually smile. I would like to make him laugh. I’m funny. What could I do or say to make him laugh?

What’s wrong with me? This isn’t a cute guy down the pub. The Doctor’s got to be sixty if he’s a day. I’m twenty-five. My upper limit is, like, thirty.

Enough of this. I’m going to go talk to him, because Jen’s right; I do need mates, and no one in this town even knows what _Top of the Pops_ is. I clear the wineglass for Dutch courage, hold my head up, and stride purposefully up to the Doctor.

Oh, _there’s_ a proper smile.

It’s lovely.

One of his long-fingered, fine-boned hands lifts a tumbler of golden whisky to his transformed lips. He’s got dimples and a mischievous glint in his eye. It’s dead fucking charming. All at once I understand what’s going on with me: those hands, imagining them touching me. That mouth on me. I want to know what he looks like when he comes. Is he silent, or a shouter? God, I love a shouter.

I hold up my empty glass in an ironic toast. “God save the Queen,” I say. “So, what’s your story?”

He blinks at me, his smile growing. Fierce teeth in a grin, ready to strike. He lowers the glass and replies, “It’s a long ‘un, and full of tears.”

Oh, get _you_. “I’d still like to hear it,” I reply. 

He makes a noncommittal noise. “One hour,” he says, “at the end of the gravel drive.”

“Sorry?” I honestly don’t think I’ve heard right.

He glances over at the front door, then back at me. “Meet me. In one hour,” he explains with deeply sarcastic carefulness. “At the end of the drive.”

“…All right.” Baffled, I go back to the kitchen. No one takes notice of me, for which I’m intensely grateful. It is nice to feel invisible for a while so I can sort myself out.

Despite all the assurances, the Doctor scares me. But it’s also, admittedly, a thrill. I can almost feel his gaze physically, stroking me from head to toe, my face, my hair, my bare knees. Memorizing me. His gaze stripped me bare without hesitation, effortlessly sexualizing me. It ought to bother me. It _does_ bother me.

But I mark the time.

For sixty minutes, I drink water, have a pee, eat my fill of finger foods, stand around pretending to listen to other people’s conversations. At the appointed time, I slip out a side door, unlock my bicycle from the side landing, and step onto the gravel path that leads away from the house towards the road.

It’s not quite full dark yet, an immense crown of trees obscuring the warm colors fading on the horizon. I look up at the stars, as I always do, marveling at their clarity in the cloudless sky. We are well away from major cities out here, away from smog. I’ve gotten addicted to clear air, running from place to obscure place.

No one waits at the end of the gravel path, where it meets the pavement of the road. Cars of party guests have been parked all along the path leading up to the house, and it’s early enough that most of the guests are still there. I realize I’m a bit drunk, and acting foolishly. No one’s here. I can and should just get on my bike and power up the hill towards home.

But then I hear the crunch of boots on the gravel, and when I turn, I see the Doctor’s silver hair reflecting the dim glow of the solar lanterns lining the drive. “Ah, good, there you are.” He smiles at me. “This way,” he says, tilting his head.

A hundred meters or so away from the road, there’s a big, dark blue, sort of blobby-shaped car parked just inside the tree line. It’s a massive old thing, surface dotted with rusted scrapes. I think it’s a Mercedes, and probably fifty years old or more; cars are one of those gaps in my knowledge. The Doctor walks up to it, and opens the unlocked right-hand door. “Get in.”

“But my bike,” I say.

“Set it down,” he says. “It’ll be all right there for a bit.”

“I don’t really want to go anywhere,” I say.

“We can sit on the hood if you’re scared.”

I frown at him, and prop the bike on its kickstand, leaning it against the nearest tree. I look up and down the road, taking a deep breath—this is the absolute worst power differential I’ve ever been in, I think. I’ve been drinking, and he looks utterly sober; he’s six foot, and the top of my head doesn’t even reach his shoulder; we’re half a mile away from the house, in the middle of nowhere. If I scream, there’ll be no one to hear it, no one to save me.

Eh, he’s an old man, and I’ve got a vicious elbow jab that’s taken down stouter men than he.

I get into the car.

He gets in, too, sitting in the driver’s seat. It’s very dark; the nearest road light barely sheds a glow into the car. I sit up as tall as I can, and stare at him. He stares back. For once there’s no confrontation in his eyes, only a calm and steady curiosity, an interested heat. 

“So?” I demand.

“Do what you want to do,” he tells me.

I reach for his arm, and wrap my hand around it. With my other hand, I spread my fingers across his chest. I take a deep breath, and lean towards him with my lips. He tilts his head down, and presses his lips against mine, drawing back with an audible smack. His smile expands, and he kisses me again, quick and noisy, but gentle; kisses of affection, the sort you give your bessie mates when you haven’t seen them for ages. The absurdity of it makes me giggle. “What the hell is going on?” I wonder in a whisper.

“This,” he says.

It’s not that the next kiss isn’t affectionate. It’s not hostile, certainly, not rough, but the friendliness is gone. His lips are damp now, licked, pressing the trace of moisture into me, pushing my lips apart with his upper lip, and when my mouth opens, he pulls away, and dives back in to literally kiss my teeth, push his lower lip into my mouth, and pulling back again, connecting us only with saliva. I can’t see it, but I can feel it. He has made my mouth water. Our next kiss is wet. He teases the tip of my tongue with his, a quick swirl and then a counterclockwise one, and I shudder in delighted surprise.

And then his teeth are on me, on my upper lip, on my tongue, at the corner of my mouth. He could hurt me, but he won’t. He’s biting me with the gentlest pressure, taking hold of my flesh, then releasing it unharmed. They aren’t like any kisses I’ve ever had before. He makes kissing with just the lips seem boring.

It’s mad. I moan involuntarily, but it relieves none of the tension.

I try to gain the upper hand, and reach between his legs. There’s an unmistakeable stiff curve in the basket of his trousers, hot and trapped. He moans, too, and inhales a deep, shaky breath. “Got yer,” I whisper, with my other hand, hold his face to mine so that I can kiss him instead of him kissing me.

But he won’t have it. Angling away, he breaks our mouths apart. Once again we’re staring at each other, but so much closer now; I can see how long and thick his eyelashes are, catch a breath of his fundamental scent, feel the warmth of his body. We’re pressed against each other over the gear shift, his hands now under my arms. Not grasping my breasts, the way men usually do at this point, but holding my ribs, only his thumbs along the sides. He strokes his thumbs against them, over the cloth of my top.

Then he says, “Back seat.”

Oh, there’s more, is there?

I lower my seat and climb into the back. This car has a huge amount of interior space; the back seat’s wide and deep, covered in slightly dusty woven upholstery. He lowers his seat, too, turning toward me, grasping my ankles and lifting my legs over the gear shift. Even when my back is settled agains the seat in back, he keeps hold of my ankles for a moment, shamelessly looking up my disheveled skirt. “What’s the story here?” he asks, running his hands briskly up my legs, grasping my pants, and pulling them down. I lift my bum to let him take off my underwear. He actually holds them up to the light to examine them. “Big Bird pants? Really, Ms. Oswald?”

I just roll my eyes and look away, grateful that it’s too dark for him to see me blushing. “I like Sesame Street,” I mutter. “And my other pants are in the wash.”

“Oh, aye,” he says knowingly, and stuffs the knickers into his pocket.

“‘Ere!” I protest, at the same moment when he places one hand over my crotch and presses his fingers down and inward. If he wanted me to stop talking, he succeeded. I don’t moan, either, not at first. He rubs me with his palm, pressing the ball of his hand into my clitoris, and then into the tender flesh over the bones right at my pelvic opening. Steady, firm pressure, a slow, circular movement right on my fanny. He just rubs me until his hand is wet, and cards his fingers through me, fingers on either side of my labia and his middle finger, the skin rough and callused, all along my clit and the hot, tingling entrance to my vagina proper. All the time, he watches closely, his attention locked onto my genitals with that same diamond-sharp stare.

Young men just don’t have this level of technique. (Most of the older ones don’t, either.) He really knows what he’s doing. This isn’t just a happy accident; it’s practiced, tried and true, and as far as I’m concerned, irresistible.

“Kiss me,” I hiss at him, “don’t just… sit there watching.”

His smile turns wicked. “I like to look,” he says. “So divine. Truly beautiful.”

“Are you an actual doctor?” I sigh.

“Might have been; won’t be. Could have done.” His finger teases my entrance, but merely skims the surface.

“Uhh,” I groan, reaching for him, locking my fingers into his hair, “use your mouth on me, please—I can’t stand it.”

“You _need_ to come,” he murmurs, amused. “I’ll _make_ you come.”

“Get on with it!” I hiss.

“Cheeky. All right, a kiss,” he concedes, turns over in his seat, and rubs his lips against the sticky-wet flesh between my legs.

“Fuck!” I groan, actually biting down on the knuckles of one hand while the other grips the back of his head and shoves him into me. “Oh, you bastard, fu-huh- _huck_!”

“Shh. No more profane language. Keep it inside until you come. You vulgar girl.”

In the quiet I hear his tongue lapping, the skin on my bare bum creaking the seat. He lifts my left leg again, this time at the knee, spreading my thighs further open. I put my foot on the window and press against it for leverage. I wish I could to the splits; I’d do it for him. I run both hands through his hair and push his skull forward, harder, into me. He raises his arms, takes my wrists, removing my touch from him, and he places my hands instead onto my own body, a hand on my bare inner thigh and a hand on my neck. Why my neck, I’m not completely sure, except that my own touch does feel good against the neck and shoulder. I can’t resist grasping at my own breast; it needs to be squeezed and massaged.The Doctor’s hand stays on mine, on my tit, tightening his fingers, and it feels strangely amazing. My own hand on my breast, on the nipple, and with my other hand, spreading myself open for his inquisitive mouth. Shaky noises rise from my throat, but I keep the blue words to myself.

“Good girl. Well done. Now,” he murmurs conversationally, and he slips the first knuckle of his forefinger into my wet orifice. “All right?”

Oh, I can talk now? Bastard. I hate him.

“Yeah—yes, for fuck’s sake, yes, please,” I babble. He gives a low chuckle, and slides the finger all the way in, draws it out, and immediately adds a second finger. Which is perfect. And twists the fingers, even more perfect. I moan loudly, autonomically, my entire body molten and hair-trigger tense at once. He moves his fingers faster—harder—and I can hear that, too, the sloshing wetness.“I—I like your approach!” I manage to gasp out, desperate for anything that might afford me even a slightest measure of control, not merely drown in this.Yes, it’s been more than a year since the Hebrides, but this—this is—

“It tends,” he drawls, raising his tongue from me for a moment, “to be a winner.”

“Oh, really?” I parry. “You a well-known ladykiller? A—legendary shag, the kind they write songs about?”

He stops with this tongue, staring at me somewhat oddly again, but he slides the fingers of one hand out of my fanny and replaces them with the fingers of his other hand, three of them inside me this time, with thumb and pinky fingers clasping the bones on the top border of my pelvic opening. Somehow, one-handed, it’s as though he has reached into me, grabbed my beating heart, and now massages it, roughly, kneading it like dough, his hand rippling and thrusting and his fingertips brushing the surface of my cervix in a way that makes me wish it would spiral open and admit him, all the way deep inside my body. I shake and cry out, suspended on his hand like a puppet, and when I start to come I know that I have even less conscious control over it than usual.

My body jerks hard, twisting away from him, back towards him, jerking again, shouting again, visions of white fireworks against my closed eyelids. He tries to hold my hips still, but his fingers keep pounding into me, thumb pressuring my clit, and I can’t stop coming.

I can hardly keep my eyes open to see his face. “I find,” he murmurs intently, wrenching orgasmic peaks out of me over and over like wringing out a wet cloth, “women’s pelvic anatomy fascinates me. You really don’t know anything about me, do you?”

This is all I need to know. “Please, let’s fuck, Doctor, please, let’s fuck.”

My bag is in the front seat and I can barely see, still concussed from the jagged and relentless peaks of orgasm, so it’s a good thing that he dredges up a condom packet from somewhere—the gear shift compartment? I care even less about cars right now than usual—and tears it open while I fumble at his waistband. I catch a brief glimpse of bare belly skin and brown and gray body hair; he pushes my hands away again, tugs his trousers and pants down below his knees, worries the condom down onto a thick, rigid, straining cock. As soon as he’s done with that, when he has a hand free, he slides those fingers into my mouth. Even overwhelming the taste of latex rubber, I can taste my fluids, all the way up past his knuckles.

The Doctor’s hand slides under my bum, lifting me like I weigh nothing, the helmet head of his cock butting insistently inside. Is he so big? Am I so tight? It’s been ages but still. Oh, we’ve got to get this right somehow or I’ll die. It’s not a lubricated condom and the rubber drags, and it shouldn’t feel good, but it does. The Doctor pulls his fingers out of my mouth, draws slightly away from me enough to move, lowers his head, spits on my entrance, and this time uses his fingers to insert his prick into me.

Inside. The violation. The acceptance. It hurts a little. It’s perfect.

That’s it. At last. This is what we need. We both moan gratefully once the deed is done. He lies still for a moment, his forehead resting against mine, but the moment passes quickly as he thrusts into me with intense purpose. I actually bite down on the fingers of my right hand, trying not to cry out too loudly, but he firmly grips my hand, and nothing can shield the world from the sounds coming out of me. Not words. The words are gone.

My free hand devours the contours of his long, angular body, all ribs and pelvis and a tense-muscled belly and a really delectably plush arse that makes me think about spankings. I shove him in, wriggle against him, the tendons on the insides of my thighs protesting as I try to open my legs wider. He’s all the way inside me, so deep our bodies join on his inward thrusts, bone against bone. Ouch, and never stop. Every blow is terrible and wonderful, and makes me think of other ways we could fuck where that wouldn’t happen—ways he could fuck me as hard as I want him to. But I can’t stop to sort those out; I need this _now_.

I don’t even know his name.

He even kisses me, a deep, proper “soul kiss”, as you might call it, tongues and breaths and lips and moans crashing against each other to create a poignantly nasty harmony. I’ve got my feet on the doors on either side of the car. I arch up against him, rubbing my tits against him when we slide together, and with the side of my hand agitate my clit until I return to climax with his cock still inside me. I wanted to see if it could be done, what it felt like, it’s the first time I’ve managed, and oh, how wonderful, and the sounds he makes make me glad to be alive.

He’s a shouter, but rather than a roar of triumph, it’s a broken groan that sounds more like grieving.

He grasps my torso tight against his for just a moment. But long before I’m ready, he’s released me, is pulling out of me. “No,” I gasp before I can stop myself. The Doctor collapses exhaustedly onto the let-down front seat. His head is near my upturned skirt, my fucked-open vagina, still leaking wetness. I become aware of how sore I am. His hips bruised me, and I’m not used to opening my legs quite that wide, but the ache inside me wants more. If he could just roll over and put his hands back into me, that would be fine; just a few more hours of that. But it’s over, I’m sure; it’s always over when he’s done.

He wears a look of distaste, almost anger, as he strips off the jimmy, knotting the open end, disposing of it in a plastic bag hanging from the back seat’s window crank. I consider asking after his well-being, but before I can get the words out, he swiftly, and seemingly without even wanting to, plunges his fingers back into me.

“Oh, my God, _yes_ ,” I shout. I feel the beginnings of rawness at my entrance. How glorious. I half-sit up, wrapping my arms around his shoulders, grinning my face off.

“Again,” he says, a quiet command. He pushes my chest gently, guiding me back down. He grasps my sex again, but this time with less tickling, more shoving. He even holds down my hips with his other hand, holding me still, his fingers stabbing insistently into me, harder and faster than my heartbeat. Not hard enough to hurt me, but just as hard as I wanted.

When my heart rate catches up, I come.

“Again,” he says, expressionless.

He holds me there, literally kicking and screaming, until tears come from my eyes and I have fallen quiet again, lost in a hazy half-consciousness of utter submission, complete surrender. Only then does he remove his hand. He fastidiously licks his fingers clean, then wipes them dry on the inside of my thigh.

I feel like I’m drowning in hormones.

He tugs down my skirt and smooths it over my legs. “Now, little girl—off you go home,” he says. He wears a grin, at last, but not a very nice one; instead of my cross-eyed bliss, he seems instead bitterly, cynically pleased.

I sit up and pull the rest of my clothes back into place. Under my hips, my still-quivering fanny has made a gooey mess of the back seat. “You what?” I ask in genuine disbelief. He just jerks his head vaguely in the direction of the road outside the steamy windows of the car. He even yawns. I see red. “You just got me drunk and fucked me stupid, and you won’t give me lift home?”

“You’ve got your bike,” he says.

“You—!” I can’t even think of a name foul enough to suit him. It is no help whatsoever that he looks just beautiful right now, his color up, rakishly dimpled grin, his black T-shirt a bit crooked where I had grabbed it in my frenzy. We hadn’t even gotten undressed. I am even more drunk than before, now on endorphins, and it’s making me feel insane. “Wow. Forgive me, but I _don’t_ think we’re going to be mates.”

“I didn’t get you pissed; did that yourself,” the Doctor drawls.

I glance at his jeans pocket, where a bright yellow corner of my pants stands out brightly against the black, like a perverted pocket square. He possessively pats them, and his eyebrows become even more rakish. “I’ll just hang on to these.”

“That’s _not_ funny,” I reply.

“I’m not laughing,” he says. He even stops smiling, widening his eyes, gazing at me all innocence. He focuses on my legs, though; I am sticky all the way down to the knees. His smile returns. He seems very pleased with himself.

I don’t have to be a party to it, whatever it is. “Is this what you do with new girls? That’s really not cool.”

He smiles wickedly. “Off you pop, love,” he says. He even reaches back and opens the car door, indicating the great outdoors with a wave of his hand. “See you Monday.”

“Oh, fuck off!” I jump out of the car, seize my bike, and set off, pedaling furiously, up the hill towards home.

It’s about two miles, a bit less than twenty minutes uphill when I’m pissed off. I yank my bike up the side stairs into the “mud room” and lean it against the wall, and blaze into the kitchen in a fury, grabbing a glass from the dish-drying rack and gulping tap water as fast as I can swallow it. Trying to wash the taste of the Doctor, and what he just did to me, from my mouth. I feel like screaming.

My housemates are in the front room, cuddled together on the couch, taking puffs on a tall bong and watching something that looks like it takes place in outer space. The cannabis smells awful and wonderful at the same time. “You’re home early,” Maya says, turning towards me. “How was the party?”

I just grunt in reply. There’s too much to tell. Maybe over coffee in the morning. I take a dishcloth off the rack next to the sink, dampen it with some of the spilled water, and return to my bike to wipe down my bike seat. It’s not sexy, it’s disgusting.

This has never once happened to me before. None of it. I have never gotten into a car with a bloke I just met. Who works at the same place I do. Who is so old his eyelashes are gray, whose face is a roadmap of lines, even the surfaces of his eyes have lines and I didn’t even know that was a thing. Get into his car and literally beg him to shag me, and then he steals my dirty underwear.

I have to see him again. I can’t trust my memory of his face. He cannot be so fucking compelling, and beautiful, and handsome.All those words veer far from the truth of how I feel right now. He is not so fit. Not that sexy. He can’t be. No one ever has been.

He didn’t make me do anything I didn’t desperately want to do.

I clomp up the stairs to my room. Despite how sweaty I am now, despite how the smell of my minge has perfumed my entire body, I decide against taking a shower. Instead, I take off all my remaining clothes and put them in the laundry hamper, then get into bed, sliding between deliciously cool, dry sheets. Before my head even hits the pillow I have my right hand between my legs, trying to duplicate how the Doctor lay his hands on me, gripping me securely from the inside.

Of course, my angle is wrong. Of course, someone else will have to do it. Someone with long fingers like he’s got. But I can feel the points inside me where his fingertips pressed in, a little swollen, softer than the surrounding tissue inside me, and when I touch one, I jolt with the sensation. Oh, well, there, of course—it’s my g-spot. And here I’d been told that it was a myth. It’s not just not a myth, and there’s more than one of them. I can only access one at a time with my own fingers, and I’m starting to dry out at last, but I alternate pressing one down while rubbing the tip of my clit until I come.

Until that’s not enough.

I haven’t got any sex toys. This will have to be sorted, and soon. I can already feel my wrist and forearm cramping up, but I have to chase it down—I need to come again, just one more time, and maybe one more time, more. But I cannot do this myself.

I need him.

I don’t even know his _name_.

_...to be continued..._


	2. Let it Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Being a smart, strong, sensual woman, Clara sorts out a way to meet the Doctor again, and takes it upon herself to learn a few things about the mysterious new total bastard of a man in her life. Meanwhile, the Doctor's kinks begin to be revealed...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I won't apologize for how long this took, but I'm also sorry this took so long. Most importantly, though - the story continues.
> 
> Remember - feedback is life!

So, I spend the following weekend riding my bike forty miles on Saturday, hoping the sweaty exercise could keep my mind off the Doctor, and on Sunday, watching several episodes of Battlestar Galactica, smoking weed, and eating a splendid barbecued dinner with my housemates, Maya and Kevin. That almost works; I realize just as the ragtag fleet makes it to the planet of New Caprica that I haven’t thought of the Doctor, or felt the phantom memory of pointed fingers being pulled out of me, only to be replaced with a heavy, swollen-hard cock, just a little too big to be comfortable, or the sorrowful tenor of the cry he gave when he reached orgasm. Of course, once I think of that, I have to excuse myself and go to bed and massage my aching clit in privacy.

This is just not like me. I blame America.

When I return to work on Monday, I blaze through the first pile of paperwork on my desk, and with the rest of the morning, spend some time looking at electronic personnel records. I will damn well find out some things for myself about the Doctor. I need information. Data. Facts. Give me some solid ground upon which to stand. It’s the 21st century; a touch of cyberstalking is simply the sensible thing to do.

It takes no time at all to find and read the details. His name is Alistair Campbell Bly. He is fifty-six years of age, closing in on fifty-seven. (Blimey, I’ve gone mad, haven’t I?) Hometown Glasgow, Scotland; current address places him on the edge of the nearest town, with an apartment number. Marital status: single/widower. Next of kin listed as Susan Campbell, daughter, with a UK phone number. He belongs to both the Art and Computer Science departments, and teaches four classes—History of Wearable Tech, 3D Modeling Theory and Practice, Figure Drawing, and rock climbing as a physical education credit. (Rock climbing? Really?) His contract goes through the end of the current school year, but is also listed as “pending,” and thus open to a potential contract renewal. He started at Optikon in January of this year. His salary is not particularly more than mine, not for the amount of work he’s got. Ah, academia; never change (and it never will).

That all feels so mundane, but I’m comforted by it. He’s just a man. A very _strange_ man, but really just another underpaid college instructor with an old car.

At lunchtime, I grab a protein bar to serve as a meal, and head to his office to confront him, flirt with him, something. Just see him again, to reassure myself that he’s real.

And then thecomplete, utter bastard isn’t even there. The professor with whom he shares his office space is eating a sad desk salad while reading at his computer. I ask nonchalantly, “Where is Doctor Bly?”

The other prof doesn’t look up at me, absorbed in whatever’s on his screen. “The Doctor’s off this afternoon. I think he said something about a doctor’s appointment… ha, that’s funny. The Doctor’s at the doctor. Maybe send him email?”

I don’t bother with a reply; I just roll my eyes and leave, and head back to my own desk. Fortunately for me, the afternoon turns out to be very busy, with me handing out information packets to returning instructors and the first keen wave of students arriving. I force my face into a smile and concentrate on my work until the day is over.

I now know where he lives. I consider just riding into town, to his address, and checking it out, a bit more concentrated spying. Instead I choose the sensible option—I go straight home, take a cold shower, and spend the evening writing emails to my family about the job, about the college, about the house, the climate, the food, the bike paths. I don’t mention the Doctor. It threatens the image of myself I’ve cultivated in the years I’ve been away; I’d rather they remain ignorant and proud than informed and contemptuous. Oh, Clara’s on to yet another unavailable professor; you’d think she’d be smarter than that. And I am.

But.

Tuesday starts poorly; there’s no coffee at home, and I’m out of even the dismal American tea I resorted to. I yawn the whole ride to campus, wishing I hadn’t stayed up so late fruitlessly chasing the orgasms that eventually just wouldn’t come, so to speak. Once I’m in the office I seize a large mug of the brown slurry that seems to suit the other admins for coffee, and can only get through a gulp or two before I can’t stand any more. And oh, the morning is busy, too; if I thought the students were keen yesterday, it’s nothing compared to the real rush. The copy machine suffers a catastrophic jam. There's an escaped white lab rat doing a runner in the hallway. A young woman’s tuition shows as unpaid, and she has a sobbing meltdown right in front of me. The best I can do is get her a cup of that dreadful coffee and sit her down in a quiet corridor to wait until I have a moment to get her sorted.

Demands fly at me from every corner. “Clara, we need more staples. Clara, could you please call the IT department again? Clara, could you please get the printouts I sent to the library printer?”

I seize upon that last, grateful to have an opportunity to escape this madhouse. “I’ll be right back!” I chirp, all but leaping for the door. The tuition girl has fallen asleep in the hall. I envy her a bit, and jog to the door of the building, and outside to cross the courtyard to the library.

The quiet in here is intoxicating. I’m tempted to just curl up between stacks and take a quick nap, but I know there’s too much adrenaline in my bloodstream for that to be a possibility. Still, I slow down, taking the shortcut through the academic journals on the way to the printer in the back of the north wing.

The Doctor stands between stacks, leafing through a thick, glossy computer magazine, his lips pursed in concentration, disapproval, or both. I’m struck again by how extraordinary he looks, how tall and thin, all in black, like a stick figure topped with a swirl of starlight. (Oh, God, it’s so stupid, but there’s just no better way to put it.) He’s wearing the same black jacket as he had on Friday night, which I can now see is faded and a bit threadbare, but had once been a well-made, tailored, expensive garment. So, like his car—he knows quality, and obtains it, but hasn’t got the means for replacement or trends. Still, his black work boots are new, gleaming with polish, and the silky gleam of his silver curls speaks of a pricey haircut and posh styling products. His eyes are actually green. No, blue. No—

“Paradox,” I mutter.

He looks up at me, raising his eyebrows in mild surprise. “No,” he says, lifting a lapel of his jacket to show me his T-shirt. “Buzzcocks.” He gives me a wolfish smile.

I frown back at him. “What are you doing here?” I ask.

“I could ask the same of you. I happen to be checking _Computerworld_ for articles by people I know. You know, I’ve always thought that all computing magazines should be named after Kraftwerk songs, don’t you?” He whistles a few notes.

I’m not even sure how to respond to that. “Our printer is down,” I finally say. “So we’re using this one.”

“Oh aye.” He quirks an eyebrow at me, and turns his attention back to the magazine.

I step closer so that I can say what needs to be said without screaming. “You’re a real bastard, you know,” I hiss.

“I know,” he replies comfortably.

“You _insulted_ me.”

“It was more of a test,” he murmurs, turning a page, still not looking at me. “Which, I freely admit, wasn’t fair, and isn’t right. I mean, you more than passed.”

“By what, not fucking killing you on the spot?” I put my hands on my hips.

Finally, I’ve gotten a laugh from him. It’s not very jolly, though, and almost vanishingly quiet. “We had a good time. You held your own. I don’t meet people like you very often.”

“I bet you’re glad of that.”

“Heavens, no,” he says, and now he looks at me. “You’re a diamond.” His gaze doesn’t waver as he adds, “I’d like to get a chance to play with you again.”

“I’m not a baseball… pitch,” I sputter.

Smiling, laughing, his eyes sparkling, he is honestly just lovely. I suppose I should say he’s handsome, but that’s just not the word that comes to mind. He’s beautiful, like an abstract painting, like a fairytale castle, like moonlight dancing on the surface of a river. He just doesn’t look much like other men his age, or other men at all, really. It’s like he’s made of spun glass and platinum. “Would you like to come over for a cup of tea? Proper English tea.”

Of all the offers. I perk up like a meerkat. “PG Tips?”

He shakes his head. “Taylor’s Yorkshire Gold.”

“Blimey,” I breathe, chuckling at my stereotypically, reflexively British response. Yorkshire Gold wasn’t my absolute favorite back home, but I did have it quite often, and all at once, I’m desperately thirsty with homesickness. “Where’d you get that?”

He glances away. “By post.”

“…Yeah. Yeah, I’d love some.”

“Good,” he says. He closes the magazine and puts it back on the rack. “West lot, around five thirty should do it. And, if you’re not too insulted, I’d love to muddle your minge again. You _did_ seem to like that.”

“Don’t push it,” I snap at him, and push past him towards the printer. When I look up after him, he’s disappeared, and for that, I am grateful. When I’m standing near him, it becomes hard to breathe.

{….}

I’m in the west parking lot by half five.

Doctor Alistair Bly strolls towards me. His pace is unhurried, yet still brisk; his long legs eat up a lot of ground with each stride. He’s carrying a weathered, threadbare black leather briefcase at his side. When he’s closer, I can see that the edges have been secured with both gaffer’s tape and duct tape, and what looks a bit like a bungee cord.

I haven’t bothered to find his car in the lot. I’m just standing on the sidewalk with my bike. People have gone past me without taking any notice, for which I’m grateful. I wouldn’t want to explain what I’m doing there, what I’m waiting for.

Who. _Who_ I’m waiting for.

On the other hand it might be easier just to think of him as a sort of walking orgasm dispenser. It’d probably make me want to smack him a bit less.

The Doctor walks past me, just as everyone else had done, without even looking at me. So much for wanting to smack him less. With a scowl, I try to fall into step with him, but I end up taking two steps for his every one, and getting a bit irritated at being forced to rush. “For God’s sake, just buy a new bag,” I blurt out. “You’re not _that_ skint.”

He just rolls his eyes, and with a few steps more, we’re stood next to his car. It looks much worse in the daylight; dotted with dull primer in more than a dozen places, dull dark blue streaks on a lighter blue surface, as if it had been impossible to match the original paint colour. It doesn’t look as though it’s ever been washed.

He unlocks the right-side door and holds it open. I stare into the car, my face suddenly very hot at the memory of what we had done there, what he had done to me the last time I had been in that space. I’m almost dizzy. I can almost smell us. Rather than think, I talk. (That’s me, all right.) “This is a sad set of wheels,” I say. “Did you drive it straight out of the scrap yard? Looks like it’s even older than you are, if such a thing is possible.”

“Oi, you. Fancy a cuppa?” he says, smiling quickly, but his sharp green eyes widen and flash warningly, a glimpse of the cruel wolf within.

I just roll my eyes at him, bored with his confrontational nonsense, and lock my bike to one of the racks next to the parking lot. Then I slide into the passenger seat. “Cheers,” I reply, smiling brightly.

He slams the door in my face. Oh, he’s getting a smack.

The Doctor takes his own seat behind the steering wheel. It’s not even a right-hand drive; the words on the console are in German. It’s a sort of rolling tank, seemingly designed to ferry bloated diplomats behind the Iron Curtain. As soon as he puts the key in the ignition, he turns abruptly to me and asks, “Before we do this, I've one question. Do I remind you of your father?”

He’s trying to warn me away, bless. As is typical, he seems to have no idea of the real reason why I might have second thoughts. I shrug and play dumb. “My dad’s a short, fat bloke with a beard; looks like Hagrid out of Harry Potter? So… not really.”

The Doctor quirks his eyebrows in a way that I’m starting to understand is a soundless, low-effort form of laughing. “Good. Right, then,” he says, starting the car.

This ancient car somehow has a nice stereo that sounds fine even at a low volume, though I’m fairly sure that’s a cassette-tape player in the dash. “What’s that you’re listening to?” I ask.

“You don’t recognize this? It’s _All Things Must Pass_. George Harrison.You know, the bloke who was in the Beatles?”

“I know who George Harrison is,” I grumble, though it might have taken me a moment to place the name if he hadn’t said it. “I’ve just never heard this.”

“Well, you’d best learn to like it, because the tape is stuck in the player. It’s that or nothing.”

“You could play the radio,” I say.

He actually shudders. “I’d rather shit meself to death, thanks.”

“Oh, no need to thank me,” I reply, staring out the window as we leave the campus behind. “Glad to know it. Keep it in mind for the future.”

“It wouldn’t be my first choice, but it’s never unwelcome. It’s a brilliant album. I can’t believe you’ve never heard it.” He spares me a glance. “I guess you’re quite young,” he adds, halfway between bitter and thoughtful. “And not the sort to go crate-digging at your nan’s. This was getting to be a bit classic when I was _your_ age. Still—half the great bits of pop music were swiped from right here.” He taps the dash with his finger. “Don’t tune it out just because it’s old.”

“I have to admit,” I say, “I’m a bit confused. I don’t know why I’m doing this. You’re not exactly my type.”

The Doctor scoffs. “Well, pet, you’re not my type, either, if we’re being brutally honest. I’m more of a Helen Mirren sort of fellow.”

I laugh at him. “Isn’t _she_ a bit old, even for you? I mean, she’s old enough to be _your_ mum.”

“More like the sexy babysitter,” he says. We’re both quiet for a moment, and then we both start laughing at once.

“Honestly, though,” I press on, “If I’m not your type, why did you come on to me like that?”

“Why did you?” he counters.

“I didn’t come on to you. I just looked at you.”

“If you could see your face, love.”

“Oh, was I panting for it?” I ask indignantly.

He lightly handles the heavy steering wheel with just the palms of his hands as if the groaning, rumbling car is made of feathers. “I haven’t witnessed desire like that in a long time,” he says quietly. “I had to see if it was real. I wanted to _see_.”

“Well,” I say, my face all hot and prickly again, and I can’t look at him for a moment. “I do look all right in that vest. And you.. you’ve, uh… got really lovely hands.”

“I’ll be sure to remember the bag for my head next time.”

“I like your face,” I murmur out the window. I'm not looking but he might be smiling.

He stops the car, and we’ve arrived in the parking lot next to an “apartment complex” of the sort that litter the American landscape like pebbles, each different, but taken as a whole, nearly indistinguishable from one another. This one’s a dull gray with green awnings and bright yellow mailboxes and an ill-kept, fried-straw lawn dotted with lumpy evergreen bushes. It’s far too ugly and mundane to be a place where the Doctor could live. I try to keep a judgmental sneer off my face as I follow him from the car to his door, on the ground floor, the doorway shadowed under a green awning. “Palatial,” I can’t help saying.

“I don’t care what it looks like on the outside.”

Inside is dark, stuffy, smelling of paper dust, epoxy, and the ozone produced by electronics. The Doctor opens a set of blinds over a kitchen sink, allowing in the evening light. Walls painted dark, dark aubergine, with pale gray and blue accents on the moldings. Long blackout curtains on the front window. A quite nice dark velveteen sofa and a chair with silver brocade upholstery. And, of course, he’s got a lot of bookshelves, crammed with books of all sizes and shapes and conditions, and even more shelves displaying a few dozen curious sculptures. A lot of them are made of the kind of rubbery material used in 3D printing, and those are the more organic, curved objects, but several are made of twisted wire, cut and torn sections of aluminum cans, foam sponge, small fragments of sheet metal. “Oh, I forgot you’re a sculptor,” I say, heading towards the objects on the shelves. “Are all these your work?”

“Mostly,” he replies, filling an electric kettle. “Some, I traded for. These’re the ones I didn’t toss out or destroy right off; most of the things I try to make, fail.”

“I only hope you can successfully make a cup of tea,” I say.

“I can an’ that.”

“Milk and two sugars, please.”

He fiddles with tea bag and cup, his back to the room. To me. “I can see your sweet tooth all over your body.”

“Oh, so I’m fat, am I?”

“You’re on the way,” he replies, turning to me with the cup. “And, may I say, for the record,” he adds, his voice going low and velvety, “I can’t wait.”

“I’m not headed that way,” I say, taking the tea, taking the first too-hot gulp. Oh, it’s heaven. “I maintain a healthy body weight.”

“I’ll sneak in a third sugar next time.” He is very close.

“You say that like you expect this to become a regular thing,” I say, tilting my head up to maintain eye contact.

Instead of replying, he just keeps looking at me with that calmly hungry expression. I drink more tea, holding my ground, my heart beating faster. I really ought to leave. I really ought to move away, and not let him get so close. I don’t know him. This is all so very, very strange. But I’m relaxing; the tea is so good, and I just don’t feel unsafe. I want him to touch me.

“Clara,” he says at last. “I would like for you to sit on the counter.”

“What?” I say, wishing I didn’t sound so stupid. Or so breathy. “On the counter?” I add, turning to touch the surface next to the sink.

“Yes,” he says.

I set down my tea at a safe distance, and hoist myself up. He watches me do it, and seems pleased that I was able to lift myself using just my arms. (I like to climb, too, but trees, instead.) I swing my legs a bit, watching him curiously.

“Now,” he says, “I’m going to take off your knickers.”

I laugh despite myself. He’s not laughing, though; his expression is serious, though not unhappy, and not excited. He is as calm as a stone. Maybe it’s that which makes it feel okay. I am wearing a calf-length, tie-dyed cotton skirt; not particularly sexy, I had thought, just something near to hand this morning and appropriate for work. But right now it seems as overtly slutty as lingerie. 

He runs his hands up my legs, over my thighs, hooking his fingers into the elastic of my pants at the leg hem, his touch quick and businesslike. Still, I gasp at the touch of his fingertips at my groin. The Doctor pulls my pants down, but only to the knees. He’s staring at my pants instead of up my skirt, examining the crotch panel, and I wish I could become invisible. This is way, way too intimate.

“No more Sesame Street?” he muses.

“I didn’t know I’d—” rushes from my mouth on an exhale. “I just put them on. I didn’t know they’d have an audience.”

“Would you have put them on if you knew you’d be seeing me today?”

I laugh shakily. “I—don’t—”

“Would you?” he asks again, and it occurs to me that he’s asking.

“You like them?”

“Do you have others? I imagine they come in a set.” He slides my pants down to one ankle, and lets them dangle there as he pulls off my shoes. My feet smell a fright, but it doesn’t seem to concern him; the pants come all the way off.

“Yes… I also have… um… Cookie Monster.”

“Oh,” he says, raising his eyebrows in a naughty smile. He tucks my pants into his pocket again.

“And Grover… and…” I’m starting to lose my breath. His hand returns to my ankle, slides up the inside of my leg. “And Elmo.”

“No Oscar the Grouch? He’s my favourite.”

“You would,” I reply, and laugh a little.

“Now, your skirt.”

I hold myself up on my hands, creating clearance for him to pull the skirt down and off by its elastic waist. “Lean back,” he says. “Move forward, just a bit. Just so your bum—yes, just there. Now, spread your thighs apart, just a bit.”

“I feel like I’m at the gynecologist's,” I mention.

“That’s me,” he whispers.

“Doctor, nothing personal, but… that’s not the most… erotic concept you’ve ever—”

“It will be.”

“I’d rather not—”

He skillfully silences me by running his fingers over my vulva. Four fingers, down from the hairs and all the way down to where my labia fold over my insides, thumb gently held along the very terminus of my thigh. He strokes down, and then strokes up, parting the inner lips like pages of a rare book, and down again. I frown and stare into space, held between arousal, embarrassment, and pure discomfort; to become more comfortable I’d have to lean back, and I don’t want to. I can tell by the way it feels that I’m not wet.

He raises his other hand then, and using his thumbs, parts my fanny quite open. I think for a moment he’s going to stick his fingers in, and I tense in anticipation—I’m not wet—but he’s not moving now, and I look down to see what’s going on.

He is bloody well _examining_ me, his nose mere inches from my minge. Light from the window falls in a wide stripe right across my exposed crotch; anyone looking in the window would have a clear view right up into me. I try to squirm sideways, to draw the blinds, but he quickly slides his hands round to my bum and holds me in place. “Don’t move,” he hisses.

“Doctor—!” I protest, and when that gets no response, I hiss back at him, “Alistair Bly, I am not an exhibitionist.”

“You can’t be seen,” he mutters, one hand returning to my fanny, again holding the lips open right over my actual vagina. “There’s a bloody great sticker bush right outside the window. And if you're being spied on by a satellite, then God Bless America. Can I make a single request, Clara?” He leans back, and actually takes his hands off me, and I just want to die unless he touches me again. “Please don’t call me by that name while we’re in a scene.”

“You just like to be called ‘Doctor’,” I smirk. I wish I could reach my skirt and use it to hide behind, but it’s on the opposite counter. Have to hold my own, bare-arsed, with my ungroomed smorgasbord fully on display. Life is full of challenges.

“Actually,” he murmurs, grinning his wolfish grin again, and his hands return to me, one holding my hip firmly, and the other leafing through my sex. His fingers doing the walking, as it were. “When I play, I like to be called ‘Daddy.’”

I roll my eyes so hard it tugs inside my skull. I sure can pick ’em! “Oh, that’s brilliant, that is.” Still, I'm glad he's not angry anymore; I don't want him to stop. He doesn't have to like me; he just has to _give it to me_.

“And I would like to call you my little girl.” He’s gone breathy himself, color rising in those gaunt cheeks and in his curved lips, and he’s looking into me again, unflinchingly lit by the evening sun.

“You’re sick,” I say, but it’s a breathless murmur. At once I feel wetness spill out of me, so much that it’s almost runny, my labia and the inner side of my arse cheeks instantly all wet. My cunt flutters, a tiny proto-orgasm.

“Obviously,” he whispers.

He bends his head towards me, and his mouth connects, and he loudly slurps from me as I open up like a blooming rose. I lean back; how could I not? I angle my hips towards him, wrap my hand round the back of his head.

“Do you want more, girl?” he asks between generous swipes of his tongue.

“ _Yes!_ ”

“I won’t hurt you. Don’t want to hurt my wee girl. Not right now. Not yet.”

“Fucking hell!” I groan.

“Ah, ah, language, pet.” One forefinger, inquisitive, circles the damp and swollen opening. “You oughtn’t to use such filthy words.”

He slides the finger into me, pumps it, adds the next finger.

“Only Daddy gets to talk like that.”

I’d like to retort, to tell him he’s not got a monopoly on profanity, but he’s got three fingers in, and he’s using his tongue on me again, from his fingers to the tip of my clit, and back again in a maddening oval. I grab his other hand and slide it up to my breast, my touch demanding he grip me, but he only plays along for a second before he’s using both hands to spread me open for his ravenous tongue.

When he fingers me again, the real, kick-in-the-face orgasm sets my entire body aflame. I cry out loud, reflexively trying to stifle the noise with the back of my hand. Again, as he had last time, he grabs my wrist and pulls it away, and at the same time curves and shakes his other hand inside of me. He's jiggling his hand from side to side, not in and out—widening me, spreading me, preparing me to be ravaged. I put my foot on his back and my shaking foot mirrors his vibrating hand, toes curling tightly in the fabric of his shirt.

“I want you,” I groan through gritted teeth. “Oh, God, I want you. I fucking want you.”

“Ssh, ssh, little one, watch your mouth. Don’t talk like a whore or I’ll treat you like a whore. Tie you up and gag you. Don't want that? Be good. Let Daddy do what he’s going to do. You’ll like this bit. I’m going to suck your clit.”

“I don’t have to do as you sa-ay-ay-ayyy!” I howl, clenching my thighs against the sides of his head, as he follows through on his threat. “I’ll talk as I like and you’ll—you’ll—ohhhh…” He sounds like he’s working on an ice cream that’s about to melt down his arm. Anyone outside in the parking lot can clearly hear me, and I decide I don’t care. I groan like a rutting cow. “Uhhh. _Ohhhh_. Doctor, oh, please, let’s please fuck? Please, will you fuck me?”

“No,” he says, pushing my thighs open again, rubbing my fanny and my clit with his sandpapery chin. It’s probably not a good idea to do that too much—he'd rub me literally bloody raw—but for now, syrup-wet and wildly overstimulated, it feels utterly perfect.

“No! Why not?!” I demand. I grab his face in my hands and force him to look into my eyes. “Why. Not?”

He wears an expression partway between a grin and a grimace. His face is all wet from the cheekbones down to the collar of his shirt; I must be coming buckets. He licks the sharp edges of his teeth before he speaks. “I’m not one of your nineteen-year-olds with a cock like a railroad spike, ready to rumble at a moment’s notice. Mine, in fact, doesn’t work at all sometimes. Like today. Consequence of living too long. In fact,” he adds conversationally, as if he wasn’t just sliding four fingers of one hand into my cunt as if putting on a silk stocking, “I was pleased to have met you, as what I was able to do Friday night is very unusual these days without medical intercession.”

“Oh,” I say, a bit chastened to have brought it up (and what better time?).

He smiles sincerely, all joyful crinkles and sparkling eyes. “Don’t worry on my account; I am enjoying myself. Very much. With your delicious, tight, willing little baby snatch. It gives me enormous pleasure to force you to come until you stop bloody talking.”

“Oh, my God,” I laugh, throwing my head back, “you’re an _absolute_ pervert!”

“And your luck, to find an absolute perv with a johnny that don’t function most of the time. Truly, you are blessed.” He kisses me right on the clitoris and nuzzles my inner thigh. “Now, do you want to come some more?”

“Yes… Oh, God, yes.”

“All right, hop down and follow me.”

“Oh, this is when the axe murder happens.” I slide down off the counter. I’ve made a bit of a mess, but I reckon it’s not my problem; maybe he’ll lick the countertop clean. And now I want to watch him do it. Fuck, what's he done to me? I wasn't like this before!

“Just lie on the couch. Get comfortable. I’ll be right back.”

“Hurry before I come to my senses,” I call after him.

“You’ll not come to your senses if I’ve anything to say about it.” He goes through a door which I assume leads to his bedroom, and returns promptly, holding an irregularly shaped plastic egg a bit bigger than a tennis ball.

“‘Ere, you’re not putting that up me.”

“How unadventurous of you! No, you delinquent, hold it against you. Not right on your clit; apparently that’s too much. Well, for some; might work for you. You’re the type of girl I can picture having it off with a concrete cutter. Bit on the side, lower, just nearby.”

It’s just a vibrator; I’m a bit disappointed, to be completely honest. Never in a million years is a vibrator better than shagging, not as far as I’m concerned. Still, I once again do what he says, and clicking on the egg, I hold it against my recently done-over fanny. The vibrations it produces aren’t very strong, but they have an intoxicating, hypnotizing rhythm, and I’m soon relaxed, legs closed, holding the vibe next to me. The Doctor stands next to the sofa, then sits on the arm nearer to my head, always watching, as lulled by the soft hum as I am. He reaches down and strokes my forehead, runs his fingers through my hair. He smells strongly of the inside of me. With his other hand he actually puts his hand somewhat over my face, sliding his forefingers between my lips into my mouth, insisting that I taste, filling my nostrils with the scent of my own arousal. Sweaty and salty and organic and female and resilient. Yes, I understand.

"Suck this," he whispers. "Suck it."

I nurse tightly on his fingers; he slides them in and out of my mouth in counter-rhythm with the vibration. I’m losing myself, legs spreading, moaning around his hand in my mouth, pushing my skull against the fingers of the other hand, demanding to be petted and stuffed full. Every cell of my body calls out for him to fuck me.

This, in a way, is it. It’s _a_ way. It’s amazing. There’s no urgency except what comes from inside me, no hunger or lust but my own… but his, giving it shape and direction. Oh, God, I need his cock, and I'll die if I don't have it. I will simply die. I'll do whatever it takes to get that cock hard and have it pounding inside me again. Whatever it takes, I will do. _We_ will do. Together. Nothing else, no one else, will suffice.

“Little girl,” he murmurs, “daddy wants to watch you come. Daddy wants to watch you _change_. Daddy has so many ideas; this is just the beginning. Daddy can teach you so much. You’re already just as depraved; you’ve just never had a proper playmate. A proper companion. Just so many… so many terribly _wrong_ things Daddy can do to you, if you let him. Daddy's going to make you do it, even if you think you don't want to. Daddy'll make you want it.”

When I come this time, it is more like the sun rising; one moment it’s still night, and then the next a piercing light breaks across the world, revealing more and more. I had no idea I could ever make sounds like I’m making—groans and howls and barks, bizarre chirps and sobs, tears streaming down the sides of my face into my hair. I am going dry from weeping so much. My eyes ache and my legs ache. I would never have believed _that_ man experienced erectile dysfunction—how could he, with me like that?—except his cock, now pressed against the top of my head as I lay there, never stirred, even as he moaned with me in a sorrowful-sounding approval. “God, yes,” he whispered. “Oh, God, yes. Good girl. My sweet, good, dirty girl.”

After a long time I remember how to switch off the vibrator, and lie there senselessly. The Doctor sits beside me, smiling, melancholy and thoughtful. When I get my breath back, and trust myself to speak again, I say, “Is that what ended your first marriage?”

He seems mildly surprised. “My ‘kink’, you mean?” he asks. I nod. He sighs. “I mean, that’s what it is. That’s all it is. It's just a set of ideas I'm into. It was in me long before I had a child, before I had a daughter. And I never thought those things about her; to me she is a baby, a literal infant, for all eternity, I don't care she's thirty. She's scraped knees and drool and liquid shits and vaccinations. She's a child. My child, but _a_ child. I'm not attracted to actual children; they repulse me. It has less than nothing to do with her; it’s just an unfortunate coincidence. Tee just… wasn’t able to see or accept that. Even now, she still doesn’t.”

We’re quiet for a bit. I actually get up, go back into the kitchen for our cold tea and my discarded skirt. I hand the Doctor his mug. “I think I believe you,” I say.

He smiles again, and holds up his cup in salute. “Well, that’s good,” he replies. “I wouldn’t approve of you fooling around with an actual pedophile.”

“I mean, it’s my choice, though,” I point out. “It’s my choice who to associate with?”

“With whom to associate.”

“Fuck off,” I counter pleasantly. “You’re not an English professor.”

“Fresh cup?”

I shake my head. “Nah,” I say, “it'd keep me up all night. But… if I could maybe beg a bag for tomorrow morning?”

“Absolutely not,” replied the Doctor, offended. “You want the tea; you come to me.”

"You what?"

"You heard me. Get your own tea for home. You get this when you come here."

I wish I could be cuddling with him right now. I could use a cuddle. But, weirdly, we're just not there yet; we just don't know each other well enough yet. God, I want that. I want to cuddle him. He deserves a good snuggle; he's always so sad. “And you give me weird toys to put on my berk.”

“Hey, now. I designed that. it’s one of the few prototypes that actually made it onto the market.”

“You design sex toys?”

“Of course I fucking design sex toys,” he says testily. “That's how I got into digital viz and manufacture in the first place. There’s only so much I could ever do to a woman’s pelvic cavity with my physical, human body; you think I’d stop there?”

“Why do you always refer to it as a ‘pelvic cavity’? That sounds so clinical.”

“It’s accurate. There is so much more to a woman’s sexual pleasure than her vagina, or even her clitoris, which, of course, I’ve taught you isn’t just your little twiddle on top. It’s a large organ with parts all through your, yeah, pelvic cavity. There are parts of your clitoris that can only be accessed through the anus.”

“Ooh, er, get you, Doctor House,” I tease, to cover my own embarrassment.

Of course he hasn’t missed it. He’s sort of glaring at me again from underneath the shaggy awnings of his eyebrows, impatient and disappointed. “I’ll teach you to like it,” he says. “I’ll teach you to wonder how you did without it.”

“Oh, wow, I’ve fallen in with Sir Mix-A-Lot.”

The glare ignites. “When I'm through with you, you’ll be begging me to fuck your shitter the same way you were just begging me to pound your twat, you small-minded adolescent. I am holding out my hand to you, ready to show you psychophysiological beauty, and you compare me to a fellow who refers to women as though they’re cars?” He stands up, and tosses my pants onto the floor at my feet. “Drink up. We’re done for the night. I’ll take you back to your precious bicycle.”

“Wow, okay, don’t get stroppy,” I say, standing, grabbing my underpants. “I’m just making fun. I feel all loose. Just act like I’ve had a few drinks; I’m not myself.”

“I don’t demand fealty or obedience, but respect, I’d prefer.”

“All right, all right.” I’m pouting, just on the verge of having my feelings properly hurt, but he quirks a little smile, and holds out his hand to me. “You're not keeping these ones?” I ask, holding up the discarded pants.

“Nah,” he says. “They’ve got no fetishistic value. Now, if you’d like to acquire some thin, cheap wee knickers with lovely little innocent flowers on them, or cartoon characters, there might be something in that. But these are just…” He shakes his head.

I put my knickers back on, put the empty cup into the sink, and we walk outside and get in his absurd car. I feel shy all over again; what had I just done? What had I just learned? “Do you wank in them?” I ask softly.

He very pointedly does not look at me. “What do you think?”

“Wank in them and then give them back to me?”

Oh, now; that gets a look. I plaster pure innocence on my face, smiling at him. He doesn’t reply, though, keeping his eyes carefully on the road all the way back to the college campus. When we arrive, I sit in the car for a moment, waiting for the customary date-ending kiss, but he just stares out the window, seemingly completely enmeshed in his train of thought. Eventually I just get out of the car and watch the big blue behemoth chug back onto the road.

_...to be continued..._


	3. Isn't It a Pity (version 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clara and the Doctor determine ways to communicate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A shorter, less insane chapter, specifically posted just to post SOMEthing after far too long. Sorry, kids, I was busy going to conventions to meet actual Peter Capaldi (and actual Pearl Mackie) and then recovering from same. I will endeavor to have more productive weekends, and chapter 4, since it's the other half of what was originally slated to be this chapter, will be up soonish - and indeed with a vastly greater proportion of absolute smut than this one.

Next morning, before leaving for work, I send email. 

**May I please beg a bag of tea, though? I’ll even come fetch it.**

By lunchtime, he still hasn’t responded. I reckon he’s older, maybe doesn’t feel the need to check email more than once a day; wouldn’t be _cool_ otherwise. And clearly, he considers himself _cool_. But lose my patience by noon. I really want that tea; coffee is great, but I’m not used to drinking it all day. My metabolism has been engineered to function best with tea. And I just want to taste it again, a bit to tide me over while I acquire my own.

Still at my desk in the now-empty STEM department office, I look up the extension of his desk phone, and give it a ring while I’m more motivated than shy and peculiar. I don’t want to get in my own way, and if I think about any part of it for too long, all the good reasons why I ought to leave this man alone will eat me alive. I’d rather _he_ eat me alive. One ring, two. Three.

_“Doctor. Not ‘ere. If I want to ring you back, I will.”_

Oh, he’s just as shitty on recordings. It makes me smile. “Doctor? It’s me. Er, it’s Clara. Check your, uh, email, would you?” The shyness sets in. Oh, God, he’s an instructor here, where I work, at my job. I’m trying to get a leg over on one of my co-workers. Again. Not a good trajectory for a career, woman. Oh, God what have I become? Do I get obsessed when a man has “Doctor” in his name? Well, at any rate, we need to have talk. A serious talk. About things. How it’s not right that he’s that skilled with women’s bodies and exploits his knowledge to shake them down to the bones, coming their brains out. How after an hour in his presence I’m having quite wild and extreme ideas that alarm the hell out of me.

Lunch ends and the busy afternoon gets under way. My desk phone rings several times, but it’s only actual other college staff, seeking or providing information. Actual work. I’d love to tune it out, but one of the things I like so much about department administration is that it really takes my mind off myself, and forces my attention to remain outward. Hours flit past and I barely notice the passage of time.

Once I have a moment to sit down, more than four hours after my return from the lunch hour, I return to my desk to see a lined manila envelope propped against my chair. It’s almost time to go home, but the envelope likely contains some hyper-critical paperwork which needs immediate attention. I sit first, though, before undoing the thread securing the envelope closed. I pull out a bit of paper — a sheet with an Art Department memo on the back, torn neatly in half, with writing in black marker on the other side.

 _Ms. Oswald -_  
_No personal communiques via email or vm; official Optikon business only.Thank you.  
_ _I am pleased with your interest in computing magazines. I regularly spend time perusing both archived and newly-published publications._

Signed with an unintelligible scribble. It maybe says _Doctor_.

I phone the library front desk. “Hi, I’m wondering when new magazines are shelved?”

“The day after we get ’em, which is usually a Tuesday. So, like, Tuesdays, or Wednesdays.”

Today’s Wednesday. Good enough. I hang up, tuck the half-sheet of paper into my desk, and head out of the office, over to the library.

Sure enough, the Doctor’s there, sat next to the magazine racks, writing notes into a blue-jacketed notebook from a magazine spread on the table in front of him. He looks up, sits back, and smiles, like he’s been waiting for me to arrive. I angle my head towards the bound-volume stacks, and he gets the hint, standing up, following me further back into the privacy between massive shelves.

“So, no phone,” I say.

“No,” he replies.

“And no email. Can I text you?” I ask, and he shakes his head with another indulgent smile. “Well,” I say, and I maybe pout just a bit. “So how am I supposed to talk to you?”

“In person,” says the Doctor, calm and friendly. Maybe something hiding behind his eyes, but I’m too coffee-twitchy to really find it.

“But _how_? How do I find you? I mean, I can see your class schedule on the network, but… How do I know you _want_ to talk to me?”

He glances at the ceiling momentarily, as if following the light of a thought. “If I’d like to see you, I’ll put one of the reply cards sticking up, like this.” Walking back to the tables, he demonstrates with the journal issue he was just reading, sliding the loose reply card to the top of the binding, and replacing it on the rack. It’s barely visible, but unmistakable if you’re looking for it. “At any rate, I’m here now. What is it? Do you need something?”

I just wanted to look at him, to be completely honest. “We need to talk,” I tell him. “Like, really talk.”

“Yes.”

“Things are busy; I can’t bunk off. In fact, I have to go back to the office right now, but—”

“But talk. But not now. I am in agreement,” says the Doctor. “Anything else?”

He’s looking at me the way he’d look at just anybody. Even back here, in the bound journal stacks, where no one ever goes, where no one can hear us or see us. It’s a annoying for him to be this way towards me, as if we haven’t done what we’ve done. But, by some unspoken agreement, this isn’t dating. We’d better be discreet. Yes, we’re both adults, but we’re at a small school, in a small town, in the global small world of academia.

Maybe he’s protecting me.

“I’d like to go for a drive soon,” I decide. “I want to hear the George Harrison record. And, you know… chat. Maybe make a plan… for… next time.”

“Ah, yes. Well, I’m not actually free until next week,” he says.

A sharp stab of disappointment gets me in the guts. “Not even the weekend?”

“I’ll be out of town.” He grimaces and adds a shrug. “At the moment, I’m preparing to be in one talk and moderate another at a additive manufacturing symposium, in the city, Friday and Saturday. And then on Sunday, I’m running a 10k.”

“Oh. I didn’t know you were a runner.” I’m a bit amazed.

“I’m not exactly an _Olympian medalist_. I keep in training and do a race as convenience allows. Just for basic fitness; trying to keep the old stumps bending.”

I can’t help smiling at him. “No wonder you look like a bundle of burnt twigs.”

“I’m on the neurotic fidgeting stay-slim regime.” He smiles back.

“By the way,” I add, “that thing with threatening to add sugar to my tea? Not cool.”

“For that, I apologize. A woman has the right to do as she wishes with her own body,” he replies, completely and utterly serious. “I oughtn’t to have said that.”

His abrupt, iron-clad sincerity makes me squirm. “I mean, I knew you were joking. But—”

“Bad joke.” He leans a bit towards me. “I promise you,” he murmurs, his voice as intense as it is muted, “I will never make you do anything you don’t want.”

And just like that, it’s as though I’m a candle wick held to a flame, glowing and growing as I burn. I gulp, my cheeks flushing hot. “Likewise,” I reply, for lack of anything better to say, and also because I mean it. He deserves the same assurance from me; we both have a lot to lose. And yet. My God. Such lusts I’m promised with his eyes.

“So… I guess I’ll see you next Tuesday?” I add, smiling quick, trying to lighten the suddenly dead-serious mood.

“Creative way to make me think about your cunt,” he replies, straightening up, brushing invisible lint off his jacket. “Like I ever stop.” He smiles back, and begins to walk away.

“You’re horrible,” I call after him. He lifts his hand, not turning back.

[…]

I can be a good girl.

I spend the next several days quite busy and virtuous—writing a piece about women’s education in rural India for the college magazine, reading department equipment designation handbooks at bedtime, doing my share of yard work at home even though I hate it. I don’t even masturbate.

And yet, I’m not a nun. I exploit the loophole the Doctor left for me in our last conversation—he did not forbid me to send him notes via interoffice mail.

I write him first thing on Thursday morning:

**Dr. Bly - Best of luck presenting your undoubtedly brilliant ideas at the symposium. Please remember your prescribed medication for our next meeting; it’s important. - Clara Oswald**

A reply comes back that afternoon, a couple of stapled pages with the Doctor’s lovely, unusual handwriting in Sharpie at the top margin.

**Ms. Oswald - thank you for your concern but I assure you it is of no merit. Clean bill of health in all respects. With continuation of regular exercise and balanced diet, patient may expect continuation of activity. Please shred after reading.**

He’s sent me a copy of his results from the doctor’s examination from Monday. From this Monday. Not quite the full work-up—no, it looks like he just had his bits examined. It’s all very straightforward, but it’s quite a bit of information—blood pressure, oxygen, cholesterol and all that in the range from “acceptable” to “excellent”; the negative results of a battery of STD screenings; and “confirmed ogliospermia”. I actually have to look that up. It means there is hardly any live sperm in his sample. Not a low sperm count—essentially none. Fuck all. I let out a bark of relieved, delighted laughter, unable to help myself.

He’s had a vasectomy. Oh, my God, it’s perfect. He’s perfect.

He’s just given me the sex dossier, unrequested. I’d wonder if he just carries around copies of it, except that by the dates on the paperwork, he’d just got all these tests done just a few days ago. Day before yesterday. After we’d already… we’ve already…

And for a moment, my mind is back there, with him inside me—his fingers (so many fingers), his tongue, his cock, finding so many places in my body that felt so good. So many touches that felt so good. I can replay the tiny moment when, just briefly, he gripped the back of my neck with a handful of my hair entwined in his fingers, pulling my hair tight at the roots, as if close to forcing me towards something but controlling himself just in time. His unfamiliar, entrancing, indescribable smell that has a hint of tea (the stingy bastard has so much tea it’s coming out of his pores—and worst of all, it’s getting me randy). Jesus Christ of Galilee and Thereabouts, I want that man’s cock inside me, and I want him to pull my hair but for real this time. Perhaps while biting my neck at the same time. I’m not a girl who’s turned on by vampires, or at least I wasn’t before, but oh, it’d be fine if he drew just a little blood.

I send a quick note back in the same envelope: **Thank you for the check-up!** **Your information has been updated in the system.** It doesn’t demand a reply, so I don’t mind when I don’t get one. I mean, I’d have loved one, but I don’t mind. The man is busy. And yet he took the time to get poked and prodded and, I have to assume, to wank in a jar, to reassure me. I can demand a lot of a man, I know, but this goes above and beyond, all the way past creepy and back to… sweet.

And determined. And thorough.

I think he wants to do it with me just as desperately as I want to do it with him. Do _it_ , and everything we can imagine. I more or less blush for the entire rest of that day, and more than one person asks me why I look so smug.

_...to be continued..._


	4. What is Life?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor gives Clara a ride. Snark, profanity, candor, and damp knickers ensue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I trust that by now the readers have picked up on the theme of the essential George Harrison triple album All Things Must Pass. If you've never heard it, seek it out and give it your ears, maybe even while reading this story. If you're an old-school fan, come, embrace me, sibling! [Don't ask me where the idea to use that specific album as a backbone came from, but that tape stuck in the cassette deck takes the place in this story as the stuck appearance of the TARDIS.] 
> 
> Thanks for all the feedback! Please, keep it up!

I'm in the library on Tuesday morning, first thing. No card sticking up from any of the magazines. I go back at lunch. No card, and still no card at the end of the day. I loosen one of the reply cards in an issue of _Wired_ , and stick it back into the magazine, just a centimeter showing above the top edge. Let’s see how he reacts to a proactive request.

I go back to the library Wednesday on my morning break, the soonest I can get away. The issue of _Wired_ is missing from the shelf; it could be anywhere. It’s not at one of the tables with the Doctor sat there reading it, that’s for sure. I actually stamp my foot in annoyance— _is that how it’ll be? **fine**_ —and flounce back to my own office to find that both printers have paper jams, and the Physics chair is pacing back and forth holding his laptop, which looks like it’s been torched with a flamethrower. I can only shrug at him. I did grow up in a flat above my dad’s computer shop, but there’s only so much I can be expected to do about an exploding hard drive. 

Some time later, a mail courier drops an interoffice envelope on my desk. I open the envelope immediately, my heart pounding. It’s just the reply card from the issue of _Wired_ I had interfered with yesterday. Nothing written on it or anything. I decide that whatever emergencies might arise in my absence would be fine for ten minutes. 

The Doctor sits at the usual table, doing a crossword puzzle in a print newspaper. In fountain pen. Hardly pausing between clues. “I bet you’re one of those blokes who can play two speed-chess games at once,” I murmur, examining the magazines behind him. 

“One with either hand,” he agrees, finishing the last space on the puzzle with a flourish. He’s using purple ink, leaving violet splotches on his delicate hands. How do fingers that slender manage rock-climbing? This man is an enigma. “Saturday?” he asks.

“What?” I’m staring dreamily at his hands.

“For the ride you want.” 

That makes me look up, all right. And then I’m a bit startled at his appearance. He looks haggard, properly _old_ , with the deep vertical lines on his cheeks harshly bracketing his mouth, the pouches under his eyes pronounced, his green-blue-gray eyes red-rimmed and watery. Hardly any care had gone into polishing up his silver hair today; it’s dull and the curls have gone shaggy and faintly yellowed. He hasn't shaved. Has he slept? Eaten anything? Ever?

“In my car,” he clarifies. And then a smile touches his mouth, illuminates his eyes, even his fatigue adding to his overall charm. “In the, ah, quite rare 1958 Mercedes W180 220S, which I know sounds like a particularly nasty submachine gun, but is, in fact, a lovely automobile, and a peerless setting for one of ‘those’ talks.”

“Saturday,” I repeat. “You free the whole day?” 

His smile grows. “If you could see your face right now. It’s as if you’re getting a puppy.” 

“Your earlobes,” I say, laying the reply card onto the table just out of his reach. “They’re really quite plump. A bit dangly. Get those sucked very often?”

The Doctor leans slightly, reaching the card with the pad of his pinky, and letting it rest there. “I can offer one o’clock until six. At that point, it’s only proper you return home for a wholesome supper with the upstanding American citizens unaware that they’re harboring a dangerous, internationally infamous sex criminal in their midst.”

I put my finger on the card, too, on a diagonal angle away. Four inches. I glance at his face; he’s staring at me, almost glaring, from under those eyebrows. I feel giggly, but I push it down, only letting a rebel smile to twitch the corners of my mouth. “Pick me up here?”

“Corner of Pike and Chameleon, by the red hydrant,” he replies. That’s maybe half a mile from my house, round a slight, wooden bend in the main road, Pike. Sneaky; we wouldn’t be seen from Pike main, and we wouldn’t be seen from my house. “Do me the favor of a wash-up first.” 

“You calling me dirty?” 

He’s got the card now, held up between his fingers, and he’s turned away from me, standing up, sliding the card into the newspaper, folding all and sliding into his tattered black bag. “Ah, we already _both_ know that’s true, Ms. Oswald,” he says, just loud enough for me to hear.

{….}

Saturday is a beautiful day. By noon it’s already warm without the sometimes-strangling heat of the summer. I take a lazy bath in the enormous clawfoot tub in the downstairs washroom, going to the trouble to scrub my ears and between my toes. Whatever he likes, it’ll be as clean as getting dressed will allow. I mean, whatever he likes, _within reason_. I'm not completely daft. If he tries anything too weird, I can always hit him on the head with my handbag, in which I’ve secreted three immense navel oranges and a large packet of wet wipes, for the potential weaponization of the corners. I have no particular sense that I shouldn’t trust the Doctor—he’s had me alone plenty of times now—but a woman’s reality is what it is, and I still can’t quite figure him out. Besides, I’m from a tourist town; I carry a knife, too, but that’s more for the swagger.  

Swagger. Little me. I’ve got it. I swagger down the road in my plimsolls and jaunty summer dress that looks a bit like an expertly folded bandana. And my hair in a bunch at the back of my head. I see the looming, dull blue car before I get to the red fire hydrant at the intersection between four sprawling country houses, and I give a quick skip up to the door before I get in.

The Doctor has the engine running, and lurches into gear even as I’m still trying to sit down without my dress going up to my armpits. “It’s a good look,” the Doctor says. “A sort of effortlessly slutty, Pleasure Beach railway station, I-take-it-up-the-bottom-in-the-Top Shop-back-room presentation.”

I laugh at him, and then I notice that he’s not smiling. And that he’s wearing sunglasses, and an ancient, worn, light-gray T-shirt that reads _The Velvet Underground: VU_. Bare, sinewy arms furred with fine, brown-and-gray hairs. I don't think I've ever seen him quite so uncovered; it takes decades off him, really, making him look more like a lanky, aging indie rocker on a brunch excursion.

“Got problems with the way I dress?” I ask, challenging. 

“I’m going to do something a bit sudden,” says the Doctor. He’s pulled into one of the culverts that lead off the road, over to somehow blessedly undeveloped meadows and scrag rocks, and puts the car into park, engine still running.

And then he’s reached across, as quick as a striking snake, and grabbed me by the ponytail; not pulling my head towards anything in particular, but bending my head back, exposing the side of my neck. He leans towards me. I think he’s going to bite me; that’s what it seems that he’s going to do, and I hold my breath in anticipation, gripping the strap of my handbag just in case. Instead, he just stares, looking me over with that odd, grim, unsmiling expression that he wears sometimes, as if the mere sight of me causes him pain. His other hand slides, palm down, over my upper thigh, into the space between my legs. As he cups my crotch, he speaks in a strangled hiss, the currents of his breath drifting over my ear. “I'll be so glad when this infernal summer is over so you’ll stop dressing like a fucking cum dumpster looking to be reamed out by anything bigger than a roll of Life Savers…”

Of course I can’t listen to that without laughing my face off. He can’t resist getting swept up in my dorky gigglesnorts, and he shakes my head gently back and forth. “Get your hair down. This is absurd. I’m not safe to drive with that shite gan on next to me.”

“Leave me alone.” I push his hands away—both of them—and snuggle back into my seat, searching for a seat belt. Only when I’ve found and fastened it do I pull loose the elastic holding my hair in place, letting it fall to brush my shoulders. He puts his hands back on the wheel, and drives the car. “I’ve brought us some oranges,” I announce, dropping the hair tie into my bag. “I hope I don’t have to blind you using the juice as a weapon; it does sting a bit. Neither of us likes that, do we?”

“Tea in the thermos, in the back,” he replies.

“Fuck, yeah,” I breathe, reaching back for it, pouring myself the lid cup full and gulping it straight down. “Oh, you’ve prevented a potential mass murder with this. You’re brilliant.”

He holds out his hand. “Pants,” he says.

“All right, revised; you’re a pervert.” I don’t hesitate, sliding them off, down my legs and over my shoes. “You really are a sick, sick person, you know that?” 

“Oh, good, Elmo!” The Doctor declares, one hand on the wheel, and the other full of underpants, bright red, matching my dress, in fact. (At least my Converse are white. I'm not doing the full Jezebel.) I’ve only had the pants on for about twenty minutes, but already they’re not quite perfectly clean anymore. The Doctor unbunches them and examines the crotch, paying no attention to the road whatsoever. He holds the crotch up to his nose. I almost can’t watch this; I’ve never seen such deviance (and yet, how incredibly harmless!). Seemingly satisfied, he folds my pants into a tiny square and tucks it into his pocket.

“Why do you do that?” I burst out.

“I can gauge your health that way,” he says.

“Oh, go on.”

“It’s true. I can tell where in your cycle you are. I can read the… robustness of your vaginal flora. The strength of your pubococcygeus muscle—”

I smirk. “A veritable Sherlock Holmes of slot.” 

“I didn’t find it prudent to polish the brass so blatantly.” He pushes up his glasses with a fingertip. “More of a Miss Marple of minge.”

“Oh, flatter yourself.” I am laughing too much. I feel like I’m high, like the time when I fell off the couch laughing at a terrible late-night sci-fi programme called _Lexx_  (I fell off the sofa, an equally stoned Maya accidentally kicked me in the head, and I needed stitches at hospital, 45 miles away; it was the best possible introduction to living in the United States I could have asked for). My God, what a beautiful day it is; the sky’s blue, the sun’s sparkling, the leaves on the trees are starting to turn scarlet and orange. And the Doctor is smiling at me as if I’m delightful.

“Hey, you’ve read Agatha Christie! I'm impressed!” he declares.

“Of course I have,” I reply. “I… haven’t read the Miss Marple stories, though. Forgive me; I’m only young.” 

“Oh, fuck off.”

“I watched the series with Joanna Lumley in, though. She’s brilliant. Did you ever try to get up her, in the old days?”

“Cowards are cruel,” he drawls lazily. 

I stare at the pocket where he’s put my pants, and sure enough, he’s left just a twiddle showing, to let me know they’re there. “You know, this thing, with my pants—it’s a bit icky and puerile, but I’m actually all right with it, you know, except that I’m going to run out of pants.” 

“That you might.”

“And have to buy more!”

“I encourage you to do so. The man on the telly says the economy needs stimulating. Also, the more you can lay in with fussy wee flowers, or cartoon lambs, or something else retroactively exceptionally filthy, the better we’ll both be. Ah—nearly forgot.” He leans forward, and turns a knob on the dash; the song “What is Life?” plays from the surround-sound speakers, and in just the right moment we break out of the trees at the top of the ridge that leads down to the highway interchange, and the world stretches out beautifully before us.

We’re both wordless for a few minutes, until he’s gone down a hill and into a loop onto the freeway, the ancient car chugging quite gamely along only about 15 kph slower than the rest of traffic.

And the Doctor is singing. “ _Tell me, who am I without you by my side?_ ”

It’s a great song; what can you do? I can't help singing along with him, joining in with the simple lyrics I’ve easily managed to learn this week. He stops and stares at me; I waggle my head back and forth in a goofy way, singing louder, refusing to be embarrassed into silence. “I thought you’d said you’ve never heard this before!” he declares.

“I hadn’t,” I reply. I look out the window; we’re back into the rural half-woods, with occasional fields growing crops or grazing sheep. “I cheated, a bit, since I last saw you, looked it up on YouTube. I really like it.” 

“Just couldn’t wait,” he muses.

“Didn’t have to. Internet. I also ordered my own tea online.” I turn back to him, giving him a close exam. He looks much better than earlier in the week; maybe it’s just that he’s got product in his hair, or that his dark glasses suit him, but he looks rested and present. We really should talk. “So you had the snip. A vasectomy,” I mention casually.

“I had it twenty-eight years ago, in fact,” he replies.

“Really?”

“Ultimately unsuccessful attempt at displaying my bona-fides to my wife. I would prevent myself from having any more children; I just wanted her to stay with me, or at least, trust me around our daughter.”

“It didn’t work,” I guess.

He sighs. “No. Still, in the end, it’s been nothing but to my advantage, because I like to fuck. Often without feelings, emotions, muddying things up. I’m not parenting material, when it all comes down to it. I might have been before, but I’m certainly not now. And of course the irony is that I’ve actually been a decent dad to Susan, despite hardly ever being allowed to see her. We created a bond by other means, mainly creating things for each other. She became a doctor because I tried to be one. Apparently I inspired her. I know she inspires _me_. She paints marvelously, and is a dab hand at unusual dioramas. I’ll show them you sometime; most are in storage, but my favorites travel with me.”

“I’m not really sure what to say,” I reply.

“Are _you_ taking birth control?” he asks.

“I’m… not, medically,” I say. “Doesn’t quite agree with me. Usually it’s not something I worry about… I was on pills, before, when I was with… er, the last one before you. Made my insanity so much worse. Awful. Awful situation, that one.”

“Ah, yes; he who shall not be named.”

“I wasn’t shagging Voldemort,” I mutter, and he grins. “His name was Matt, and he doesn’t bear discussion today, or ever, really, if it’s up to me.”

“And it _is_ up to you, of course.” He reaches over and pats my hand.

“Where are we going, by the way?”

“Just to a beautiful little place I discovered a while ago. It’s very quiet, unless you call the county police, and I don’t intend to have any reasons to do so.”

“Doctor,” I ask, “are we going to fuck today? If it’s up to me, I’d like to.”

Surprising me, he laughs. “I don’t think we can,” he replies, “not today. “But,” he adds, before I can yell at him, “if you’re interested in a proper session this Friday, I’m amenable. The thing about it is, you have to be prepared for a very lengthy experience, perhaps longer than you want. It’s not something that should be entered into lightly.”

“Neither am I,” I snap back.

“Are you angry?”

“Disappointed,” I reply. I add, regretfully, “Randy.”

“You won’t be disappointed, I promise. P.I.V. fucking isn’t everything; it’s just a number in the repertoire. I’m almost sorry we led off with that; I didn’t mean to create a precedent, something I’ll be measured against, every time we see each other. If that’s all you’re interested in, we can have a snog, and I’ll take you right back home, and we’ll part as … well, not friends, exactly…”

“Awkward quasi-colleagues,” I offer.

“Yes, that. I hope that’s not the case. It’s not, is it?” he asks searchingly, slowing the car as it winds down a bendy, sloping road. At what seems a quite arbitrary location, he pulls off the road and stops the car, engine running, and stares at me intently. I look round where we've parked; surrounded by immense, very old trees in every direction, on a unpaved road, with a mysterious smell of nearby water that can't be seen. This is splendid isolation, shaded from the sun, but still in the midst of its warmth, a profound silence stretching around us like an auditory curtain.

“That’s not all you want, is it?” he asks again. “You’re interested in more, else you’d not be here. You can get a hard cock up yer nearly anywhere—”

“Oi, you, watch it.”

“You’re a beautiful, sexy, dewy young woman leaving a trail of fuck-me pheromones everywhere you go like a musk doe in heat—”

“ _Oi!_ ”

“Fine, fine, like a field of ovulating magnolias, I don’t know, what do you want? It was my guess that you’re not just up for it—you’re ready to go to strange places for fun. Am I correct in that assumption?”

“And only you can provide these things,” I say.

He looks round and holds up his arms. “Do you see any other dead handsome blokes with an encyclopedic knowledge of orgasms around here?”

“Not in this car,” I have to admit, the smile returning to my face. "Are we going to fuck without feelings, then?"

"I don't think that's what's happening here." He’s got a trace of a smile on his face, too—just a trace, his visage mostly quite serious, almost grim. I think that’s just how he looks; he’s got resting grim face. I reach out and touch the line on his face second back from his mouth, the deep short groove in his cheek worn by one of his dimples. He moves his head just a bit, just enough to capture my finger between his lips.

“Lift your skirt,” he says.

I lift the skirt of my dress to my waist, twisting my hips slightly, just enough to part my thighs, and run my hand over my pubic curls. Even I can smell myself now. He’s not wrong about my pheromones; I'm waving them around like an overeager perfume counter salesgirl. “So what did you learn from my pants?” I ask him.

“It’s not conclusive, but…” Without hesitation, he grasps my hand where he had been lipping at my finger, places it between my thighs, and angles my own damp fingertip between my folds. He then lifts my hand and sucks my finger into his mouth, rolling it all along over his tongue, even slightly underneath it. “Mmm,” he purrs, and slides his own right forefinger into my vagina, smooth and all the way deep, pulls it out again, looks at it, sniffs it, tastes it. Then puts his wet finger into my mouth alongside mine. “I think your period is going to start before the end of the day.”

“You can tell that?” My voice comes out a lustful whisper.

“Texture, scent, flavor. How hot you are inside, how plush, velvety... sticky-wet.” His finger finds its way inside again, slowly, as if pushing something back inside me. “You’ve been ovulating for the last week or so; progesterone levels dropping. You’d bite my head off like a mantis to have my cum inside you right now. If I was going to fuck you, for your maximum satisfaction, it’d have had to be yesterday.”

“I don’t want your cum inside me,” I whisper desperately. On the stereo, an endless guitar solo has reached a seething crescendo. God, this is all so sleazy; it's so perfect. I'm so wet inside. I want him. I am perfectly ready for him _right now_.

He fingers me urgently. “Yes, you do. You want buckets of it, in every hole you’ve got. Your body still knows there’s a chance that the magic spark might happen; get some fucking spunk in your holes and maybe you win the jackpot. But of course you’ll never win the jackpot with me—”

“I don’t _want_ your jackpot!” I laugh helplessly.

“Ah.” He turns his hand a bit, holds his first two fingers together, and eases them in. Frictionless. It’s maddening. I must spread my legs, though that makes the friction even less. “Metaphorically speaking, of course.”

“I’m from Blackpool! ‘Jackpot’ is not an erotic word!”

He laughs. “Shall we call that your safe word, then?”

“No…” I have to think clearly for this, but it’s so difficult; I just want him to cram in his whole hand, massage the ache of wanting. I take a breath, and slip his sunglasses off, folding them and putting them on the dash. God, I wish he would kiss me. “Might say it by accident. _Am_ from Blackpool. So… um… ah. Ahhhh.”

“It’s bad etiquette, to try to talk this through when we’re already in the midst. I apologize.”

“Dave,” I decide.

“Dave?”

“’S my actual dad’s name.”

“Excellent choice,” says the Doctor. When he pulls his fingers free, it squelches like pulling a wellington boot out of wet mud. I don’t think it sounds nice at all, but apparently, he does. He pulls my legs across the seat towards him, puts one of my feet up on the dashboard, and begins determinedly, energetically, to lick my twat.

Almost immediately, he gives me fingers, too, three of them, first pointed and gathered, then spreading, gently but insistently, forcing a blossom to bloom. The thrusts of his fingers isn’t hard or rough, but smooth, deep, insistent, making room, stretching the congested muscles inside me. I’m coming before I’m even aware of it, hips bucking hard, and my foot on the dashboard lashing out, slamming my heel on the polyurethane until he grasps my ankle and holds it still. 

“Oh, my God,” I gasp out, almost apologetically.

He chuckles and hums, licking his glistening lips “Naughty girl. Don’t kick Daddy in the face.”

“Daddy makes his little girl,” I shoot back, “do naughty things. _Nasty_ things.”

“Oh. Nasty. You haven’t experienced nasty yet, my sweet little macaron. Nasty is yet to come.”

“Will you show me?” I whisper, rubbing his hand against my mons, my clit, begging to be rubbed. He smooths his hand from my navel down and up again to the top of the crack of my arse, back again, still smoothing, still spreading.

“When I get you indoors, little precious, under controlled conditions. This car is a fine place for fantasy, but you’ll want a bed underneath you; you’ll want a towel; you’ll want someplace soft and indoors to recover. When you're being gagged and double-fisted at the same time, you'll want it to be indoors.”

Crikey. What in the hell have I gotten myself into? Return to basics for a moment. “Will you pour me a cup of tea?” I ask.

“If you share it.”

While he busies himself with the thermos, I lift my dress off over my head, and lie back on the seat with my head in his lap. He hands me the cup, and moves his hands down to my neck, my breasts, my stomach. He’s never even seen my naked tits before, but he gives them no more particular attention than any other part of my torso. I actually sit up, and hold my own breasts in my hands, feeling them almost as if for the first time. Sort of biggish, but also sort of smallish. In-between tits. I don't know. They're just breasts. Like legs. I don't know. My head's all in a muddle. They ache, and not just with the flush of desire rolling through my body; I think he’s right about my period being on its way. And my tits look magnificent, my nipples flushed dark and swollen rigid. He glances at my face, concerned, assessing, takes the thermos cup from me, drains it in one go, and with his mouth still hot and wet from the tea, wraps his lips around one of my nipples.

It just feels wonderful. I pour myself more tea, and sip it slowly, moaning around my mouthful of liquid, while he suckles on one nipple, then the other, one hand busy feeding me to him and the other rubbing, rubbing against my cunt, my perineum, my asshole, making it all wet and sticky with my own cum.

“How is it I’m naked, and you’ve got on all your clothes?” I demand.

“You’re more aesthetically appealing.” He closes his teeth on a nipple, pressing in, but never sharp enough to be a proper bite; it’s more of a clamping situation. It feels fantastic until it abruptly hurts, and when he lets go, it hurts more and feels more fantastic.

“I miss your cock,” I tell him, resentfully rubbing the bitten tit. “I want to see your cock.”

“Oh, Clara.” He sighs.

“There’s nothing wrong with it,” I insist. “It doesn’t have to do tricks for me. I just want to, you know, say hi.”

“Ask how it’s hanging.”

“You exceptionally silly man.”

He closes his eyes and rocks back and forth in silent laughter. “How could I say no to that?” he decides, kissing the top of my shoulder. I hold him still and kiss him on the lips, not too hard or aggressively, just letting him know that’s how I feel, that that’s what I want right now. He breaks the kiss quickly, angling his head down to watch himself as he undoes the fastener on his trouser zip, and slides it down and open.

I help him tug down his trousers, down to his ankles. He’s wearing plimsoll sneakers, too, which means I can’t take his keks off without also taking off his shoes; and he’s got a handful of my hair, push-pulling me insistently towards him. He’s pushed down his own pants to expose himself. It all looks a bit awkward and ridiculous; I have to agree that doing this in his car, in the front seat no less, lacks a certain measure of elegance.

But I’m glad to see his cock, the relative mundanity of it, un-erect, resting alongside his groin where it was tucked, a substantial curve of dark flesh with the twiddle on the end shielding the tender head. I reach for it, pull it out straight to assess its length. He’s got plenty of it, all told, even if it doesn’t look like it gets much bigger when it’s hard, at least from what I remember of how it felt.

I decide to spoil him a little. I look up at him, making my eyes particularly wide and limpid, and ask innocently, “Can I taste it, Daddy?”

His cock twitches _hard_ in my hand. Harder than I ever knew they could, like it wanted to detach itself and go on its own adventures, thank you, without the baggage of the cautious old man it’s attached to. “Oh!” I say, my surprise genuine, but my expression of such just a little bit breathy and overdone, just to see what it does to him. “It’s so _alive_.” He doesn’t seem to be able to speak, for once in this life. I feel amazing, and reckless, and immortal. With a curious hum, I put the head of his cock into my mouth and suck lightly.

“Careful,” he says quietly. His breathing has deepened. 

“What might happen?” I ask, fluttering my eyelashes, sucking again, pushing his foreskin back with my tongue as best I can. The flesh in my hand, in my mouth, has barely heated in response to my touch, but, importantly, it has. I take more into my mouth and try to massage the base. “Does this ever work?” I ask.

He sighs again. “If you want to work at it for a few hours,” he admits. “I mean, if you’re interested, someday we can try that, but… trust me, your jaw will get tired first. It’s not worth it.” 

“It might be worth it to me.”

He gasps faintly, and his cock jerks in my hand again. I keep up the steady motion with my hand. “I want to cum in your mouth,” he whispers. “I want to cum in your cunt and cum in your shithole just to lick it clean. I want to cum in your mouth ’til you gag and beg me to stop and you’re crying and your face is just a mess of tears and cum and I’ll know I wrecked you. I’ll know I fucking ruined you. I turned you into my dirty little spunk whore and you hate me and you hate it but you keep coming back because it feels better than anything else in your tiny—tiny life—” His eyes actually roll back, and he quakes in my grasp, and a trickle of cloudy fluid wells from the now-exposed head of his cock. It’s not really an ejaculation, but I can tell by the way the blood rushes to his face, and his shaky breaths, interrupted by a low moan, that he’s reached orgasm.

I honestly didn’t know that was even possible. “Are you all right?” I ask.

A tear flows from each of his closed eyes, down his temples, and into the vertical lines on his face. “Ah,” he replies, “ah, yes, I’m—” At once his arms are around me, holding me tightly against his t-shirted chest, hugging me with a sort of reverent gratitude. “Oh, my Clara, you are a rare marvel. Please let this only be the beginning for us. I have so much more to show you.” He descends into desperate, fleeting whispers, like a flame slowly going out, leaving a trail of smoke that also vanishes. He squeezes and kisses me, nuzzling me like an enthusiastic house cat. “My little girl, I will worship every bit of you. I will make you and unmake you. I will exalt you as you exalt me.”

“We’ve barely even done anything yet,” I point out, starting to feel embarrassed and overwhelmed.

“Yet,” he repeats, his smile growing to nearly frightening manic intensity. I would swear I can see blue flames in his eyes. “But if you will have me, I will show you infinity.”

Well. If you put it like that.

I pull away, sit up, find my dress, and put it back on. Sighing, he dresses himself again as well, wincing slightly as he stuffs his damp, slightly fattened cock back into his pants and trousers. The tape deck clicks, and the mellow opening strums of “I’d Have You Anytime” begins again.

 _Let me in here, I know I’ve been here, let me into your heart._ God, just the sound of it almost makes me orgasm again. He's re-wired my brain. This album is now a signifier. God, I hope we don't ruin it; I don't want to give up even the tiniest bit of this.

I turn to him and kiss him on the cheek, catching just a taste of his tears. “Show me, Daddy,” I say, giving him a smile.

His look of happiness, of gratitude, though muted and filtered through the kind of seriousness that descends between people in intimacy, is like nothing I’ve ever seen, or expected to ever see on the face of a man, because of me. He doesn’t look as though he’s had a desperate request fulfilled; instead he looks invigorated, determined, bravely accepting a mantel of responsibility.

The hours have flown by; it’s nearly six already, and I barely noticed the time. He drives back through the village, back out to the sprawl of houses beloved by college personnel for the last seventy years, the air perfumed with fallen plums and cherries and the fiercest autumn wild roses. On the drive, I hold his hand; he needs it. I need it.

He pauses the old blue car by the red fire hydrant, near my house. As I ready myself to open the door, he takes my hand again, gazing at me, searching and vulnerable.

I kiss the back of his hand and stroke the side of his face. I only nod and smile cheerfully, reassuringly. I know words will only ruin things. We don’t know, but we’re willing to try, to see where this goes. We’ll both have to be brave.

I give him an orange, get out of the car, and head for home.

My housemates are barbecuing again, as usual, and I walk around the house to the backyard to greet them and see what they plan to cook. Maya waves a spatula at me. “Oh, good, Clara, you’re back. We need somebody to shuck the corn. Did you have a nice time today?”

“Yeah, great,” I reply a bit distantly.

“I saw that big, old car you got out of,” Maya adds, leering at me. “So who is that? Anyone I would know?”

“No,” I say to her, sitting at the picnic table, and grabbing an ear of fresh sweetcorn. “Just a colleague.”

_...to be continued..._


	5. I'd Have You Anytime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That Friday at half past six, Clara goes to the Doctor’s apartment for a "proper session." Pure solid-state transistor tube-amp speaker cabinet Marshall stacks guitar-smashing Who Live At Leeds certified smut.

Friday at half six, I arrive at the Doctor’s apartment.

He’d asked me to ride my bike there, instead of us meeting on campus and him giving me a ride to his. Apparently he had chosen to run to work, and run back. **Improves circulation** was the explanation, in red Sharpie, on half a takeaway menu, delivered via interoffice mail. It had been tempting to slide that half-a-menu down into my pants and rest it against my increasingly restless minge. Even though I’d given in and cheated and banged one out this morning before breakfast (I accidentally brushed my clit while putting my knickers on, and then just kept rubbing it for half a minute), that quick, hard orgasm hadn’t sorted me. My body _wants_ in a way that’s out of my control; sheer biology has taken the wheel. Ordinarily I’m not all that up for it right after my period ends, but I reckon there are exceptions to everything.

He’d been right, of course. About my period. It had started that night. I hadn’t been good company at the barbecue, begging off with a headache, and spending the next few hours tenderizing myself until the blood flowed, and for a bit after, even, until cramps took the fun out of coming. And then, ever so perfectly, my period ended yesterday morning. I give the Doctor full marks for planning.

It’s really not far. My bike ride from school takes fifteen minutes, if that; two traffic lights, both green, one slight bastard of a hill, then down. Once the grade reduces, I coast, riding “side-saddle” rather than astride, using my weight to propel me rather than pedaling. Exertion might be good for the Doctor’s circulation, but I’d just rather not show up a sweaty, red-faced mess. Also, frankly, it feels like flying.

I barely knock before he opens the door and beckons me in. He’s not even looking at me, expression pinched and preoccupied. “Right, then, I can smell you. You’ll need a wash,” he says.

Every sensation of anger rushes to my face. “You _what._ ”

He arches his eyebrow. “Get over yourself. I’ve ’ad mine. Kettle’s just boiled.”

He’s wearing a threadbare black T-shirt with _Lowlife_ printed on the front, and a pair of gray plaid pajama trousers; he’s barefoot, his hair damp, dark graphite-gray, combed straight back. His face is very freshly clean-shaven. Honestly, he looks delectable, and I’m starving. _Hangry_ , even.

I shut the door behind me, watching him pour water into two mugs on the kitchen counter. “You’re a dick,” I say, pointing my finger at his back. “That is _not_ what you say to a woman who—”

Without warning, he’s grabbed my arms, and his mouth covers mine. Oh, he smells lovely, and he tastes lovely, too, sort of a bright-dark, spicy flavor; clove, maybe? Of course he’s got some exotic toothpaste. Whatever it is, it makes my mouth dizzy, and I suck anxiously on his tongue, gripping the very tip of it between my front teeth. Dangerous stuff; requires a lot of trust. A part of me would gladly bite off his tongue.

His mouth relaxes, his kisses becoming long and loving, but at the same time he holds my back and presses his groin, hard, against my belly. He’s not got an erection—I’m only poked by the peaks of his hips—but the signal he’s sending is clear. I release his mouth, and we stare at each other’s eyes, nose to nose.

“I’m fine,” I say.

His eyes are hazy with pleasure. “You need a wash,” he reiterates. “So I can have every bit of you in my mouth.”

Oh. I smile and melt against his body, my arms snaking around his thin back. “I’ll thump you,” I reply.

He grins. “Tea first.”

I sit in the one chair in his kitchen, and he leans against the countertop, and we sip hot tea. I almost spit mine out. “This isn’t Yorkie,” I gasp. “Ugh! Tastes of licorice!”

“It’s Throat Coat,” he replies mildly. Of all things, he’s absorbed in his iPhone.

“What?!” I almost throw the cup at him.

“Contains slippery elm, marshmallow, and, yes, licorice root.”

“Fuck me, it’s foul. I won’t. Give us yours.”

“You wouldn’t like this any more,” says the Doctor, still fiddling with his phone. “Mine’s burdock and linden, and aye, it tastes like it’s been dredged from the bottom of a skip, as well. You’ll wish for it later, so go ahead and let it get cold. It’s only for your own good. You’re going to be shouting quite a bit; I thought I’d give you something to soothe your throat.”

Completely out of nowhere, music starts playing in the other room.

“Never thought you’d be such a hippie,” I grouch.

“It’s just experience, love. Can’t always be poppers and E’s, although, if you’re down with that, I probably wouldn’t say no.”

“What’s the music?” I ask.

“Teardrop Explodes. I had an urge. You know it?”

“Never heard of it,” I confess. I give the tea another try; it’s better now that I’m expecting it, but I’m just not a fan of licorice.

“Not surprised.”

I stare at him, and he stares at his phone, deftly swiping out a message on its virtual keyboard, and paying absolutely no attention to me at all. This cannot stand. “So, don’t be cross, but I had to have a wank this morning,” I declare.

He grins at that, but still doesn’t look at me. “Bad girl.”

Maybe I should throw my tea at him. “At times like that I really wish I had a little, battery-operated vibrator, so I can have it off a bit quicker, yeah? I don’t suppose you’ve got an extra from your vaults you’d be willing to donate.”

That gets his attention. Of all things. He looks delighted. “Of course,” he says. I’m so happy to have him finally look at me that I grin back. He holds up his finger, and adds,

“Oh—but only if you’re a good girl tonight.”

I just stare at him again, actively trying to control my breathing so he doesn’t end up with a face full of licorice broth. He has the nerve to laugh. “Ah, Clara. As much as I love your smile, I love your pout even more.”

“I’m here for sex,” I tell him flatly.

It’s like only then does he grow a bit more serious. He turns his phone off and sets it on the counter, then holds his tea mug between his palms, fingers cradling the bowl. “Fine, then. But first, let’s talk. I know it feels like a waste of time, when we both really know what we’re after, but you’ll get used to it. Before anything, we talk.” He calmly slurps from his mug. “How much real experience have you had with ‘play’? Of this sort. Roleplay. An understanding of positions of dominance in the imagination. An understanding of genuine, sexual surrender. I’m not talking about you; I’m talking about us, both.”

I shake my head. “Not a ton, really.” I sound regretful, although since I’ve not really done it, I can’t properly regret having not done it. Besides, it’s strange, and it makes me feel strange, off-balance, adrenalized, the awareness of the fall before the body feels the velocity. I don’t know exactly how to express that to him.

But, thankfully, he just nods in understanding, and offers me a quiet smile. “With your permission, I would prefer not to use a condom tonight.”

“I—uh.”

“I trust you,” he adds. “I haven’t even seen your medical records.”

“You probably shouldn’t,” I mutter. "Trust me."

He gives a resigned shrug. “I know. If you’ve any hesitation, the suggestion’s off the table. Just know I’d like to feel you as completely as possible, and vice versa. Another time, perhaps. You are my only sexual partner right now. I’m not interested in any others. I know you’ll do me the kindness of informing me if you are.”

“I’m not,” I confess quietly.

He fetches a square of blister-pack from one of the cabinets, loosens a pill from the packet, and holds it out to me so that I can look at it. It’s just an ordinary white tablet that looks exactly like an aspirin.

“This is vardenafil, ten milligrams,” he says with tremendous gravity, as if telling me that I’m secretly of wizarding blood and have a destiny that starts tonight. “Despite what patriarchal society would have you believe,” he continues, “this places me in a position of great vulnerability. I don’t enter into this lightly. I need you to know I take it seriously. I take _you_ seriously. But the only commitment I’ll ask of you is your respect, for both me, and for yourself.”

“Yeah,” I respond, surprised. “I mean, I do.”

“Good.” His smile returns. “Because we might go to some frankly alarming places. I might ask more of you than you know how to give, or want to give. Know that nothing I do intends to demean or belittle you. I take pleasure in you, but I take pleasure in your pleasure.”

“‘Taking pleasure in other people’s leisure,’” I quote out of reflex, under my breath. Nervous habit, always cropping up at the worst time. “Sorry,” I mutter into my tea.

He just rolls his eyes a bit. “It’s like trying to watch telly with the cat walking on the remote, with you. Remember your safe word.”

“'Dave,'” I supply with a little wave of my fingers. “What’s yours, then?”

Without hesitation, he replies, eyes sparkling “Uri Geller.” When I break out laughing, he adds, “I’ve never needed to use it, if that tells you anything.” Without ceremony, he pops the pill into his mouth and washes it down. “Right, then, bad girl; time for your splash. Bathroom is through there; there’s water in the tub already.”

“It’ll be cold.” I actually deliberately pout this time, just to see what he does.

“Get you done quicker then, won’t it? Do the lot. Inside and out. Between the toes and behind the ears. And put your hair up, if you would. I quite liked that, what do you call it, a ‘high pony’?” He grins again. “To me, it’s a fucking handle; keep your head where it ought to be.”

Good Lord; I can feel wetness seep through my pants. This is horrible. I’m a feminist; I shouldn’t respond to that kind of chat. But it’s just so hilarious, so viciously funny; we are having a go and a giggle at the same time. Dangerous business. “You don’t want my pants?” I ask.

“They’re just stripey,” he says, and I don’t know how he knows this, but he’s right. “Besides, I can smell you from here.”

“Uri Geller,” I repeat back to him, trying not to laugh.

“Scrub,” he adds. “And brush your teeth.”

I sigh and shake my head, and reply in a grumble, “Yes, Daddy.” When I glance at his response, he winks at me.

His bathroom is small by American standards, but it does have a bathtub, spotless, clearly in a position of tremendous importance. As reported, there’s a bit of water in it already, five inches deep or so; no comfortable, relaxing langor here. I take off my blouse and pleated skirt, socks and loafers, grateful to peel off my bra and pink-and-white striped pants. They’re very girly; I thought he might get randy at the sight of them, but I guess he only likes what he likes. I’m almost chilly, naked, and I climb into the tub before I lose my nerve. It’s room-temperature, a few drops of oil shimmering on its surface. It feels quite lovely on my skin, cooling me without being cold. There’s a bottle of unscented body wash, a flannel, a tube of toothpaste, and a new toothbrush, still in its packaging, on the edge of the tub. “I guess I’m just meant to spit in the bathwater,” I yell at the open bathroom door.

There’s no reply from the Doctor, but I hear the music change, and recognize it this time. I shout again, “I know this! It’s the Cocteau Twins! I actually know this group!” Still no reply. I unwrap the toothbrush, apply a bit of the paste, and combine gnawing on it and brushing with my left hand while I use my right to wash my underarms with the cleansing gel. I make a quick job of brushing, and stand up to spit in the sink. I catch sight of myself in the mirror, stood there utterly naked and still a bit soapy, and linger for a moment, hoping he’ll come in. Doesn’t he want to see me naked? Isn’t this every man’s fantasy?

But he doesn’t appear, and I feel a bit embarrassed and sit back down. He did say to scrub everything. I sink down into the water until it covers me up to the hairline, and wet the flannel and use it to wipe my face and behind my ears. I’ve nothing to wash my hair with, so I just run my fingers through it and squeeze it out over my shoulders. I run my soap-slick hands over my tits, over my belly, down into my pubic thatch, and below. My clit is hot and erect; I can feel its protuberance with my fingertips, and I trace all around it, envisioning Venus rising from the sea foam on a spread-eagled clam shell. _Get a load of this, fellas._

“None of that,” the Doctor hisses, snapping me out of my reverie with a gasp and a splash. He stands in the doorway, his brow like thunder. “Only when Daddy says you can. You’ve already been naughty today; time to be good.” His eyes rake over me, huddled in the tub with my hands protectively over my tits. “Stand up.”

I frown as I do, keeping my hands over my breasts, hiding them from the steel in his gaze. I’m getting nothing from him but angry disappointment, and that’s just not where I’m at today. There’s roleplay, and then there’s deference for the sake of it; not today. If he _is_ disappointed after all, he can have his four-hour stiffy all to himself. “Maybe just a bit of a knock first, next time?” I say. “You’ve done a bit of a serial-killer move.”

“You like horror movies,” he drawls, arching one of his eyebrows as he approaches the tub. He’s still drinking me in with his eyes, though, over my belly and minge and legs, all the way to where the water comes up to my calves. It’s only then that I realize that of all the men I’ve ever been with, he’s not there for my tits. It’s like he doesn’t even care about my tits. I drop my hands to my sides and raise my chin.

His expression has softened by subtle degrees, and he’s almost smiling at me now, all eye contact. He has a large towel in his hands, and he holds it up to me. “Come,” he says.

I get out of the tub, and let myself be enfolded in the towel, in his arms. He holds me close against him, even as my legs wet his trousers, more blotting me dry than rubbing. “Turn round,” he says, holding out the edges of the towel, then rewrapping them around my front, under my arms. He finishes by rubbing the edges of the towel down my sides, down the outsides of my legs, and then up the insides. I like the texture of this towel; it’s a bit scratchy and rough, old and hard-used, and it sucks the water droplets right off me.

“Now,” he says, flicking the towel expertly onto its drying rod on the wall, “put one foot up on the edge of the tub.” Still facing away, I do this, and it parts my thighs quite completely. It’s no surprise that I hear him lowering himself to his knees onto the damp rug, or to feel his hands warm and dry on my thighs, parting me a bit more, stroking up to my bottom, parting my arse cheeks with his thumbs. It is, for some reason, a surprise that he begins licking me there, tongue swiping hot and wet against my hole. I flinch, and he holds my hips steady. “Don’t,” he says, murmuring into my flesh, his tongue sliding lower, against my vaginal opening, the tip poking inside me.

“Oh, God,” I gasp as quietly as I can.

His tongue retreats back into his mouth to wet itself, then back against me, licking all the way up to my clit, all around it, all around where the hood spreads into my labia, and back to the two entrances into my body. It’s oddly not lascivious; he is not licking me to generate my pleasure, to be eating me out, the way I’ve always thought of it. He is tasting me, thoroughly and meticulously. When he pauses, I’m trembling, and grateful for his steadying hands.

He’s stopped. He’s sat back onto his heels. I turn round and stare questioningly at him. His cross expression is back. “You didn’t wash properly,” he says. “I can still taste the day on you.”

“Oh, for—!” I bite off the protest. “I can always—”

“Ssh. Leave it.” He stands up and turns to the medicine cabinet above the bathroom sink, drawing out a plastic tub that, when opened, smells marvelously of coconut. He dips his fingers into the tub, and then runs those fingers over my genitals, from damp fluff to the top of my crack, rubbing in gently. The sensation is so indescribably good that I moan aloud, not too loud, but audibly. The Doctor gently wipes the area with the damp flannel, leaving some of the lubrication behind. “I’ll get my fill of you some other time. You already know how I can wreck you with my mouth.”

He takes my hand and leads me out of the bathroom. I feel dazed already, boneless and complacent, all my previous annoyance dissolved. I think he’s leading me to his bedroom, but he pauses in the hallway, and indicates a low bench with the same silvery upholstery as the chair in his front room. “Sit,” he tells me, and I sit. I’m at direct eye level with his crotch.

He reaches for jutting bulge in his pajamas, fingers cradling the shape within. I reach for him, too, gently peeling down the waistband to release him. The way his cock bounces out from the elastic is blatantly pornographic, almost laughably so, except that we’re both so pleased to see it, so happy to be doing this. We both take a moment to admire him in all his rare glory, long and thick and well-formed, and clearly nowhere near fully erect. “In your mouth,” he orders softly.

“You scare me a bit,” I admit.

“Open,” he whispers with a smile.

I’m ready. I open my mouth and push my lips over the end, pushing his foreskin down and out of the way, and in that moment my jaw protests. I hesitate, pull back, rubbing my jaw. “Oh, it’s really big,” I mutter, brain a bit dim with lust.

He likes that; his cock jerks in my hand, and his fingers slide through my hair, bunching it at the top of my head, holding it firmly. Holding me in place, while his cock insists its way back inside. “Make it bigger.” I give a solid suck, and he groans. “Uhh. Work on it. Suck Daddy’s prick. Make it wrong. Horrify me.”

Oh, God, we’re already having sex, we have been since I came through that front door, or at least went to the bath, and I’ve been thinking that it’s the act of fucking itself that’s the sex, when it’s all of this, every moment and every word we say, and what lies behind those words, those feelings that lie behind those words… because in so many ways, this is wrong, and if I horrify him, I’m horrified as well.

But oh, God, I need this. I want it. I want it horrible.

So I concentrate on sucking. I concentrate on relaxing my mouth, taking as much of him in as I can, wishing my already big mouth was even bigger. I can get about what feels like half of his length into my mouth; not enough. I can’t go deeper. I just can’t. He pulls out, groaning, and holds me by the hair, and very lightly slaps my cheek with his fingers. I close my eyes and frown in frustration, confusion; I wish that slap had been harder, so I could feel it even more. “Don’t, Daddy,” I mumble sulkily.

“Again,” he replies, coolly and distantly. He pokes his damp cock head back into my mouth, pulls it out again. He does it again, and I actually whine.

There; there; that proper spank on the cheek, and holding me hard-still as his cock plunges into my mouth. I’m prepared for it, somehow, and so I don’t cough, or choke, or gag, and he strokes back and forth across my tongue. When it occurs to me—in words—he’s fucking my face—I can feel a surge of wetness spread between my thighs to dampen the brocade upholstery. I hold up my hand, hoping he’ll notice that I want him to pause so I can speak, but if he does notice, he still doesn’t stop. Oh, my stars, I really can’t handle this, not without touching myself. My right hand returns to stroking myself, hoping my touch comforts my clit, except, of course, it doesn’t work like that.

Eventually he pulls my hair firmly enough that it pulls my mouth back off and away from his cock. There’s saliva all over my chin and my cheeks and my neck; he roughly wipes his hand across them and rubbing my drool down onto my tits. He lifts me to my feet, caressing my mouth with his own, and when he can tell I’ve regained my balance, he pushes me to the wall to rest my back against it, and smacks my tits with the flat of his hand. The fact that they’re freshly dampened just makes the light, sharp strikes even more effective, and at once my nipples are so hard they throb. He takes one between thumb and forefinger and rolls it, like he’s rolling a cigarette. I’m nearly out of my mind. For some reason I spit at his face, not with any great vigor, and I doubt he’s even hit with anything. But he taps my face anyway, harder, as hard as he’d spanked my breasts, and I am nearly dissolving at his feet.

“You whorish little bitch.” His voice is all rumpled velvet. “If you could see your face. You’ve never had anyone ready to give you this before, have you? Never, ever, have they. You’re ready to strangle me for making you wait to come. And couldn’t, could you? No, you couldn’t fucking wait to interfere with yourself.”

He’s tugging me back down the hall, and indeed, yes, it’s a bedroom we’ve come to. He gives me a light shove towards the bed, already stripped down to a paisley-patterned fitted sheet, a garble of dark-colored bedding shoved onto the floor at one side. The room is fairly well-lit with three lamps shedding a pale-gold-colored light. Definitely a man who wants to see everything, and see it clearly. “On the bed. On your knees,” he snaps at me. “Arse up, head down. And then show ’em to me. Show me those fuckholes.”

I take my bum cheeks in my hands and spread them, watching over my shoulder, and trying to smile. He approaches, smiling a bit and rolling his eyes. “You look right silly like that, you know,” he says, his wry and gentle tone a lot more advisory than horny.

“Oh, do I? Sorry; I’ve lost my skills,” I reply.

“Oh, no, love, you haven’t. I just know I’ve broken you.” He smiles wickedly at me. I’m giddy enough to laugh, comfortable enough to relax, still watching him, biting my lower lip. He sits on the edge of the bed, sliding towards me. “Remember your safe word,” the Doctor adds. “Don’t tell me no, and don’t tell me to stop… because I won’t listen to that shite. Tell me no and it just makes me want to donkey-punch you with my cock so far up your arse you can taste it.” He actually strips off his T-shirt, and I stare at my first glimpse of his fully naked body, both a lot nicer than I’d feared, and a lot less nice than I’d prefer. Fundamentally, he’s just got a body, naturally rail-thin, gray and brown body hair, brown nipples, visible abdominal definition stretching against pale, pale skin. And yet, his skin is flushed hot with arousal, his raincloud of hair tousled, his marvelously muscular runner’s legs, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything more beautiful in my life.

He points down at his cock, now rigid, dark red, glistening with a thick glossy coat of pre-come and spit. “Brace yourself there, and stop looking at me. While I fiddle about inside you.”

I shift up, gripping the headboard of the bed with my arms, my bum up and out, facing him. He actually gets up and brings one of the lamps closer to me, resting its base on the bed sheet, shining the light right on my backside. I think at first he’s about to resume his tasting, but he’s using his fingers now, first dry and blunt on my anus, the first inch or so inside my cunt, then pausing to apply some more of that odd coconut-scented lube, and pushing fingers into my cunt and my arsehole at once.

“Jesus Christ,” I yelp, “oh, my God.”

“Open it up. Open it all up.” Two fingers in each hole, just inside, not pulsing or thrusting, just pushing ever deeper inside. He withdraws the fingers, more lube, and then it’s three fingers, three in each–

“That _hurts_!”

“I know,” he replies. “You know what to say. Or don’t say it. Shut up and take it like I tell you.”

“Uggghhh, Daddy, stop, you’re going to hurt me,” I whine.

The fingers inside me start thrusting. It does hurt—it does—but oh, it doesn’t, not enough for me to want it to stop. I just can’t stop vocalizing. He’s got half of both of his hands inside my body. “Open it all,” he murmurs, “I want to take it all.”

“Yeah—no—I mean—shit, I _can’t_ , I—”

He’s on me now, he’s mounted my presentation, and the head of his cock is pressing hard against against my arsehole. I yelp and struggle involuntarily, protesting, “No, no, I’m not ready—”

His fingers close around my throat, not too hard, but unyielding, and I lapse into tense silence. “You’re ready when I say you are,” he hisses in my ear. One of his hands clenches one of my breasts hard, maybe hard enough to bruise, it sure feels that way, I’ll have to check—and his tongue is in my ear, his breath hot against the side of my face. “These fuckholes are mine. All of them. Mine—” His cock presses harder, slipping free against me, and I let out a sharp cry of anxious surprise. “Hot, tight, wet little fuckholes for Daddy to play with. For _Daddy_ to fuck.”

He retreats from my back, his hand slipping down my body from my tit to my cunt, and he holds his thumb down on my clit while he slides two fingers back into my ass. Like a magnesium flare bursting into white flames, orgasm obliterates me from the inside out, blasting my body into a thousand glowing pieces. I’m almost through one, and headed back down to earth, when he shifts his fingers inside me, and strokes my clit head the opposite direction—and once again, I combust, twisting and screaming on the bed.

I am shuddering, riding his hands, both of them, rocking back and forth, completing the circuit again and again, arse to cunt to heart and back again. I could live here, inside this shimmering crystalline pyramid of ecstasy; I’m just never going to stop coming. I’ll be coming, over and over, forever. “Told you, I’d make you want it,” he says. The fingers in my cunt are still, and the ones in my arse shuck deeper, less deep, deeper again. The thumb has slipped off my clit; the little man in the boat has retreated from the scene of his defeat. “I decide when you’re ready. And when you are, you’ll fucking take it deeper in your arse than you imagine it can go, and beg me find a way to make it deeper.”

“I can’t. Oh, God, you can’t _do_ this to me. I can’t. You have to stop. I can’t come any more.” My face is all wet with tears and drool; even my nose is running. And my hair is a hopelessly snarled, tangled mess.

He laughs at me. “I literally haven’t started fucking you yet. Haven’t even _started_. You’ve got another three hours of this, love,” he says.

“Oh, for fucks’—Dave, all right? I can’t take hours more. Not without a break.”

He immediately releases me, his eyes sparkling. “You’re supposed to be the young one here.”

“Do you ever have, just boring, normal sex,” I mutter. My head is swimming, lower body swollen tight with pleasure. “Just, climb on, ten pumps, and you roll over and grab your phone?”

“What a dreadful notion. I’ll put the kettle on,” he says. “You’ll want your cold tea, though.” He gets up, his cock jutting up like a rocket preparing to launch, and pulls a blanket from the floor to toss at my legs.

While I lie in a dazed puddle on his bed, wrapping myself in the blanket up to my chin, he returns with my first cup, setting it on the low bedside table where the lamp he’d used to “examine” me had sat. I put the lamp back on the table, and sit up to drink my cold licorice broth, which is now, admittedly, marvelously soothing and refreshing. Maybe I _will_ learn to like this ichor. Momentarily he returns with two small cups, and hands me the one that smells like proper tea, and gratefully it is.

He sits next to me, sipping his own tea, occasionally stroking his rigid cock but otherwise relaxed, utterly uninhibited, like he’s just wearing a new accessory. “Looks painful,” I say. “Have you got a comb?”

“More of a… vexing urgency.” He reaches into another drawer, and hands me a comb carved of some smooth, ancient black bone. It easily smooths the tangles in my hair. “Feels more a bit tingly, like there’s a Polo in each o’ my balls. Would feel lovely if you’d suck it, when you’re inclined,” he offers.

I gulp more tea, and slide down to his abdomen, kissing his tummy a few times. There’s just a bit of pudge there, centered around his navel, and I love how it feels, bouncy against my lips. Chuckling, he takes the comb from me, drawing it through my hair, his fingers piling it up on top of my head, attempting to twist it into a bun. “No, let me,” I say, “you’re doing it wrong...” My hair is just long enough to twist and hold itself in place, if only temporarily without pins or an elastic. He’s watching me fondly. I look back at him, trailing my fingertips over his chest and belly, concentrating on the skin beneath the sparse hair. “Do you want to come?” I ask softly, grasping one of his nipples, trying to roll it like he did. It’s really only then that I realize that the Doctor’s nipples are both pierced, with clear plastic flat-ended barbells in. They almost completely disappear against the flesh. “Oh, blimey, now, what are these?” I crow in delight, giving the one in my fingers a twist.

He shudders with pleasure, cheeks flushing red, but rests his hand atop mine, halting the motion. “Ah, ah, ah, no, Daddy’ll teach you more about that later.”

“You _are_ a bit of a dirty duffer, aren’t you?”

He grins lazily at me. “Used to have more,” he says. “Sensation junkie. I liked feeling the weight of them, knowing what I went through to have them. But I gradually took ‘em all out, didn’t I. Those two are the only ones I have left. Though I have to say, you make me regret taking the stud out of my tongue.”

“Not like you need it, though,” I say.

“I’ll show you all the scars someday.” He closes his eyes, stroking his cock again, circling the urethral slit with his thumb. The same thumb that had done the same move on my clit. I can feel the grasping muscles inside me twitch, and I follow the path of his thumb with my tongue. He gasps faintly. “Harder. Harder... suck it, now. Get right down on it and suck. Yes, that’s it… That’s my wee girl. I want to come inside you,” he murmurs.

“I don’t… want you to,” I confess, glancing up, feeling myself drawn back into the fantasy reality. Sexual, longing, but anxious, worried if I’m going against Daddy’s rules. Has he even given me rules?... Wondering what the consequences might be… how much I’d accept before it was just too much, before it became something I just did not want. Why won’t I let him come inside me? Whatever the reason, I have to give myself some ground to stand upon; some way to keep myself to myself. But I can taste his come, dilute again, thinned out in the swelling droplets of pre-ejaculate, and it’s terrifyingly intimate; we’ve already crossed so many lines.

We’re naked together, with a thin navy-blue bedspread separating our legs. We’re naked and I find him very beautiful.

He runs his hand over one of my breasts. “I’ll have these,” he muses, grasping the nipple, twisting just as I had done to him.

It nearly curls my hair; I hadn’t realized how hard I’d done it. It’s a bit more than I like. But oh, it feels nice when he lets go of it, slipping his mouth over it, sucking firmly. “You’re a filthy pervert,” I whisper, rutting against his hip, leaving a wet trail behind. “You fuck little girls.”

“No, I don’t,” he replies, switching to the other tit for a moment of suck and release. I feel every air current in the room against that wet tab of special skin. “I only fuck one little girl. I only fuck Daddy’s little girl. That’s... worse.”

He holds my head steady, and slaps his wet cock against my lips and my cheeks. I’ve got my mouth open, but it doesn’t seem to interest him, only striking me, leaving stripes of pre-come on my face. When I gasp, “Oh—don’t,” he switches to beating his cock against my breast, held in his hand, trying to strike the nipple.

“Hold still,” he hisses. His cock is as hard as wood, as hard as bone; it doesn’t hurt, but I feel that it somehow could; that, if he had his way, my tits would be striped with bruises from his cock. I don’t care what he thinks; I’ve got one hand on my quim, squeezing and rubbing hard and fast.

“Open.”

I concentrate more on keeping my eyes closed (once money-shotted in the eye, twice shy) than on opening my mouth. His cock slides back in, though, and I can feel him scraping against my teeth; by the sound of his moan, he deeply enjoys the sensation. I feel a brief burst of wetness against my chest, my sternum, and more spurts on my breast. He even manages to insert the tip of my nipple into his slit, and the next shot gushes square against it. God, I’d never even thought of that before. Moaning, lost, I grasp his cock, pull it to my mouth, and rub my lips against that warm, yielding hole in him, painting my mouth with his come like lipstick.

“What’s that, what’s that,” he complains, still moaning. Our voices rise and fall together. I can feel the pounding of his heart in my hand. “You dirty wee slag, lick your lips. You’ll get your gob done up next, you.”

I can’t believe how caught up I am in the Doctor’s orgasm, the fluttering rhythms edging me closer to another of my own. “You can come on my face,” I mumble. “But—but not in my cunt. You’re not allowed to do that.”

“But Daddy loves to put sperm inside you,” he murmurs, sweeping me into his arms, and licking my lips himself, licking my mouth and neck clean, showering kisses down and back up to my temples. Like magnets his hands return to my cunt. To my arsehole. I want them there just as badly. My fuck holes. They’re clenching and twitching for him, swollen and aching and a little sore, but wanting desperately for penetration. Even in my arse, which I’ve not even really had before. It just didn’t appeal to me before; what could be the appeal? I hadn’t known what could be done on the way. His fingers, connecting somehow inside me, tying my disparate nerves together to make a circuit, have worked me open and slick, fore and aft. I lift my leg over his leg, sliding up to his waist, to give him all the access he wants. His hands delve into me, slowly, reaching, the fingers in each access corridor reaching for each other, pressing together in a specific area that jolts me like I’ve been hit with a cattle prod, and make a low, growling noise that would make more sense coming out of a rutting tigress. “You want to feel it _inside_ you, don’t you,” he continues. “That—gushing. That _pulse_. That shock of honey. Like you’re taking my blood; like I’m shoving it inside of you–”

“Enough—now, please,” I snarl, tugging him onto me, up me, legs already spread so wide my bones protest, hand on his hand in my cunt. I drag his hand out of me, wrenching his arm hard enough to make him yelp, and shove my hips against his lower belly. “Fuck your long legs, get it in me, _in_ me, Daddy, oh, please—”

“Fuckin’ hell,” he remarks. “I’ve destroyed you.”

It’s like I’ve been waiting so long that it doesn’t even feel good when it happens, when his cock has entered me, is just inside me, and I’m wriggling to get better purchase on him. He drags me closer towards him, and with his hands pushes my thighs more closely together. It’s something he has to do, his hand guiding, pushing his cock inside me, testing with gentle thrusts of his hips. I growl in my eagerness again, and claw my fingernails down the bed sheet to spare the skin on his back.

“Now,” he says, “this, though...” And like magic he’s now quite far inside me, inches and inches deep, and I can feel the head of his cock against my cervix, and it’s not even vaguely uncomfortable as it had been before; I am so ready for him. He holds my hips slightly above the surface of the bed, holding me steady for long, slow strokes. We’re moaning together in the same rhythm, exchanging broken voices thickened with arousal. We both sound like we have terrible colds.

I break into laughter. One of my worst habits. It’s ended more than one dalliance as I desperately tried to explain that I was laughing with joy, not laughing _at_ anything, and certainly not _him_ , the sensitive crybaby. Of course the Doctor is made of less insecure stuff, and he laughs, too, and keeps fucking me, and quickly kisses me on the lips.

“Throat Coat,” I say.

“You might lose your voice otherwise,” he replies.

“Oh, it just feels so good. Your cock is, like, magical.”

“Like a unicorn, rarely seen,” he says, a touch breathless. “Or, more properly, the yeti.”

I cackle. “Doctor!”

“Ah, ah, ah,” he says, actually pulling out of me. “You know who I am. You know _what_ I am.”

“Daddy,” I reply softly, and he smiles and nods, turning me onto my side, and angling the lower of my legs toward my abdomen. Approaching from the oblique angle provided, the Doctor slides back into me. Deeper still. I can feel his balls against me. “Daddy’s so good to me. I don’t want him to ever stop.”

“Nasty child,” he murmurs.

His pace is still so slow, thrusts no more frequent than a full breath, inhale and exhale. I reach up and run my fingers through his riot of silver curls, and he sucks my fingers when I’m finished. I have honestly never, ever been fucked this way before. It’s so relaxed. I get chatty again, once I can stop using my breath to moan. “No way can I get this thing in my bum,” I theorize. “Way too big. Way, way too big.”

“D’ye think—you’re dealing with—an amateur here?” he asks. “I have-written-papers-on fisting. You’ll not just have the lot o’ this, you’ll take a fist in both your holes at once—in all three, if I’m in charge of it. And,” he adds, with a particularly deep thrust, “I am.”

“You’re mad,” I reply.

We laugh together again. “Experienced,” he says.

I gaze at him; he’s watching me, too, eyes hazy. I stroke the hollows of his neck. “Bit dark.”

“I’m an alchemist. I can spin your fears into gold. And by gold, I mean you gagging for it on the floor of a McDonald’s toilet, because you know how I can make you come.”

I’m almost there… so almost there. “As long as… you spread your cloak… for me to kneel on,” I half-gasp.

“Spread my cloak. I’ll spread my cloak and you’ll spread your front garden for the battering ram.”

“You say the sweetest things.”

“Turn over,” he says, his eyes twinkling.

“Not in my bum!” I insist.

“Oh, God, do shut up.” He hikes my hips up until I’m in a sort of downward-dog position, and as smoothly as a diving dolphin, he’s inside me again, yet deeper than before. I really can’t say anything, whether or not he wants me to; I can hardly even moan, doing more of a rapid-fire panting than anything else. No more slow strokes now. He’s got a goal in mind. Now, I really have had sex like this before, and I liked it a great deal, and I wonder if it’s because one of those spots he’s isolated inside me that drive me crazy is right where the head of his cock forces against it as he’s thrusting inside me? Right there? There there _there_ —

I don’t even know what I’m trying to say, but it emerges as a garbled gasp and howl that goes on for much longer than I’d have chosen, were it up to me. I sound like I’m being killed. The Doctor keeps fucking me through it, quiet but for a muttered “Yes” while I’m shaking apart underneath him.

At once he stops, pulls out, and I hear him stroking himself behind me. Well, not exactly stroking—his form of masturbation seems almost cruelly fast and harsh. Just listening to it gets me hot all over again, and I lie there feeling hijacked by lust. “Don’t turn over,” he says, and I feel him spurt and drip all over my bottom. It feels like a lot of come. He hisses through his teeth, and groans quietly, ending with a weary sigh.

He flops next to me, and I stare at him. He’s lying on his side, and his cock appears barely diminished from its peak—perhaps even more purple than before. “Good lord, how much life is left in that thing?” I remark.

He laughs. “We can stop any time. It’ll go away if we stop messing with it.”

“I think I’m, I’m,” I say, overcome with a dizzy fatigue. “I’m out. I’m done. I’m good.”

“You good?” he repeats back to me, smiling a tired smile. There’s sweat at his temples; definitely sweat at my temples. My messy bun has disintegrated completely. I must look like Kate Bush in the eighties.

“Can you hand me my tea?” I ask.

He actually gets up and brings me the damp flannel from the bathroom, as well as handing me my china cup of now-cold Yorkie. I have never tasted anything so delicious. But yes, my throat feels raw. Most of me feels raw, in fact; my cunt and my arsehole and my tits and my mouth. He had properly fucked all of them, and I could barely even make it. But I had done; I had done the course, and we’d had a simply glorious time, and angels sing hallelujah. I kiss him on the lips and rub the tip of my nose against his. “Thank you, Daddy,” I murmur, and add, “thank you, Doctor.”

“Upon reflection,” he says, seeming very proud and pleased, “I think I like this look best of all.”

 

_... to be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, but I write when I can. Hope this is worth the wait! (It is.) As is only appropriate for the name of this chapter I chose what may be the sexiest song on a very sexy album, "I'd Have You Anytime" - a fine example of describing physical longing through purely melodic means. George Harrison doesn't have much of a reputation for writing really sexy music, but he ought to, especially in these days when Clapton kept him on his toes searching for new languages for the blues, especially in guitar performance. Anyway, that's your music history lesson for today! Give the song a listen if you're not familiar! And yes, it really is "to be continued" - there's lots more where this came from.


	6. Beware of Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas and happy/sad Regeneration Day! My gift to y'all - the next chapter! Taking place immediately after the events of chapter 5, the Doctor and Clara engage in pillow talk that goes some alarming places.

For a while the Doctor and I just lie there, weary and content, drinking cold tea, and listening as the music of the Cocteau Twins plays over invisible speakers, a song concluding with the singer’s voice rising to an ecstatic, half-gasped yelp.

“Sounds like she’s just had a banger of an orgasm,” I comment, grinning.

The Doctor nuzzles my shoulder with the cold tip of his nose. “I think you’ve just hit upon the enduring appeal of that group,” he replies. “It’s just listening to a woman having it off, over and over, in a thousand different ways.”

“So of course, they’re _your_ favorite band,” I murmur.

He chuckles. “Nah,” he says. “My favorite ‘band’ is Bowie.”

“David Bowie?” I murmur, stroking up his arm, down his shoulder to his body. Bones, muscles, wiry sparse hairs on his arms and chest, all divine to my touch. I would like to kiss him all over, but I’m too lazy.

“Yeah.” He finishes his tea with a slurp, half sitting up, drawing me towards him so that I’m draped across his lap. “You like David Bowie?”

“Of course. Everyone likes David Bowie.”

He briefly flashes his teeth; it’s not quite a smile. “Is he _your_ favorite as well?”

“Erm… well, no… I don’t actually know enough of his stuff, really…”

“Stick with me, then; you’ll hear it all.” He takes my hand and kisses it, then puts it back onto him, onto his chest over his heart. The beat is incredibly strong; it could shake us both. It's difficult to ever stop kissing him.  


Naturally, I play with his nipples, gently tugging on the discreet piercings. He does smile, then, and starts to toy with mine. “Well, he’s not really a band, though, is he. Who’s your favorite ‘band’ band, then?”

“Hmm… the Jam, probably?”

“Mmm.” On his other forearm, in a place I’d never noticed before, he’s got a tattoo. Details faded to shading, decades old; a snake, rampant and half-curled; a bit of a classic sailor flash. It seems almost too boring to suit him. “Ooh, er, what’s this, then?”

“My first one,” he says. 

“You’ve others?” I reply in surprise. I don’t know why I’m surprised; it’s not as though tattoos are something only the young kids get. I am reminded of the fact that I had not ever seen him naked before a few hours ago. We're so comfortable with each other, it's like we've been doing this for years.  


“See,” he says, half-turning his back to show me. There is a pattern of fine, faded lines and overlapping circles on the inner surface of his shoulder blades, the color suggesting it was done in ink the color of pencil lead. Far too asymmetrical to be wings, but certainly located in that general area. It’s really quite beautiful. On his left ribcage is a dove, holding a lightning bolt in its beak, all just outlined in black. On the right ribs, again in black, more faded than the dove, Greek characters: ΘΣ. “Theta Sigma,” I recite, tracing them, earning a ticklish shudder from the Doctor. And on the arches of his feet are scrawled in pale pink, crudely and sloppily, FUK and OFF. “Those are scars,” I observe.

“Aye, yeah,” he affirms. “I did that myself. With a bit of razor blade.”

“What?! Oh, my God.”

He seems pleased. “I was a tetch irritable that day.”

“Doctor, that’s horrible.” Those cuts were deep; there must have been blood everywhere. How could he have kept going?

“Yes,” he agrees, clearly and unhesitatingly. Instead of elaborating, he points to his right hip, rubbing his fingers across the scar tissue I’d felt with my hands while he was fucking me, as I tried to pull him deeper into me. “These are brands.”

“What, like—you mean, with hot metal, like an animal?” I am hitting ten on my scale of shock and outrage. “Like a steer?”

He nods, smiling, but also closely watching my reactions. I take a close look at the site of injury—more circles, two this time, but one with a sort of blurry dot in the center, attached to the outer ring with a fine, raised line, and the other with a clearer six-pointed star in the middle. The seam that attaches the star to the circle is ragged and lumpy; it had clearly not healed very smoothly. “My wife did these,” he tells me, stretching the skin between his fingers to show me how it might have looked a long time ago, when his skin was tighter. “She designed the brands, then actually made the brands herself in a metal shop, and then heated them in a fireplace until they were red-hot and put them on me. Did you know you have to put a bit of pressure on, or the skin sticks to it? Monstrous. I passed out. Learned a lot of manufacturing skills from her, I did; she made whatever came into her mind, and if she didn’t know how, she’d learn.”

I’m not sure I want to learn anything about this, and yet I’m sizzling with curiosity. “Your wife?” I ask for clarification. “Your wife did this? You let your wife do this?”

“My second wife. The one that died.” He knows I know, and I’m not sure I’m meant to. I can’t meet his eyes. I just focus at the patterns that had been literally burnt into his flesh. “I wanted her to, or it wouldn’t have happened. Kind of life we had together. I inscribed my feet on the day I had to call the city to take her body away. It was a staggeringly stupid process, performed by cretins and thick-brained imbeciles, and I was doing everything I could not to give the emergency workers a proper stomping because I’d already spent too much time in jail that year.”

“So was that on your feet a message to  _them_ ,” I ask quietly, “or to  _her_ ?”

“Take your pick,” he says.

I run my fingers across his pelvis, down into his half-gray, curly pubic hair, massaging the skin underneath. His cock isn’t hard anymore, but still swollen and red as wine; I don’t touch it, in case it hurts as much as it looks like it does. “I would like for you to tell me about her,” I say, “sometime. But not right now.”

“Good,” he says. He lies back down, slides his arm around me, presses himself close to my side, kisses my hair. “I don’t, either. I’d rather talk about the things you like.” He nuzzles the side of my face, and strokes my arm and shoulder. Like me he seems to be keeping his hands off my sensitive bits for now, even though all it does is make me even more aware of them, how sensitive they are, how they all ache a bit. Or more than a bit. He is so warm, and his heartbeat so strong. I half turn and kiss him just in appreciation. “Like, who is  _your_ favorite band?”

“Oh, the Killers, for sure,” I say promptly.

“Huh! Figures. I’ll get you into the Stooges.”

I frown. “You don’t have to get me into anything,” I say.

Rather than arguing his point, he nods and replies, “Of course, you’re right, of course. Sorry. Force of habit. I say things like that to my daughter. And then she comes right back at me with, ‘You oughter listen to ’at Hildegard of Bingen, mate, she’s blowin’ up.’” He laughs. “Forgive me. Undoing old reflexes is the work of a lifetime. I want to listen to you, not lecture you.” His hand finds mine, threads our fingers together, and gives a squeeze. “What you like.” I finally meet his eyes, and his brilliant, interested gaze. “You obviously like to fuck.”

“Most of us do,” I reply.

“Thing is, with me, that won’t be the usual, so… what’ll we do to tide you over?”

“Oh, it’s about me, then, is it?”

“It’s only ever been about you,” he says.

The only way I can reply is to kiss him.

But he’s still talking. It would be all right if he’d stop talking, but he seems to want to go on. “I want to know what you like,” he murmurs, “what you’re into. What I’m allowed to do. What’s acceptable but not something you like.” He actually draws back a few inches so that we can look at each other. “When I tapped your face, you liked it, didn’t you?” he asks.

Oh, God. It’s unbearable to be asked this, to have to tell the truth; I owe him that, and really, I owe myself that; am I really giving him permission to smack me? In the face? But he’d already done so, without my permission; did it twice, harder the second time, and the sensation has already vanished from my skin but I can feel it clearly in my memory. And just the memory jolts me inside, as if my clitoris is a guitar string that’s been twanged. I bite my lip, and glare at him under my eyelashes, but I don’t say no.

Oh, God. This is what I am. Gran will be so disappointed in me. Dad, probably, and Mum, and everyone, I was raised to be so against anything like this. Not being hit; liking it. Getting off on it. I never wanted to be this person.

But I guess I am.

The Doctor seems to get my deep internal struggle. My awful shame. And yet I’m rubbing my pubis against his thigh, hoping I don’t expose my clit, because to have my clit touching him again will just be the best and the worst thing of all time. “I won’t hurt you,” he says gently, holding my hand again. “I promise that I will never take it too far. Ever. But you did like it.” I don’t have to look at him, or say anything, but I nod, and he squeezes my hand. “Never out of anger. Only to excite you. To show that I am excited along with you.” Squeezing my hand again, he adds, “Feel free to smack me back. I want you to. In fact I particularly would  _like_ you to.” He holds my hands up to his lips so that I can feel him smiling. “I like that sort of play. Impact, they call it. Sensation. It’s just sensation. It’s sex. It doesn’t mean anything more than silk knickers, or cream in your coffee. You like it, that’s all, and that’s all it has to be.”

“It’s just—so fucked, you know?” I mutter.

“I’d like you to hit me,” he says.

“Yeah, but you’re a crazy, psycho pain freak, obviously,” I shoot back.

He just laughs, and moves against me, parting my legs with his, and damn it, my clit brushes against the hair on his thigh and I actually moan. This is awful. I really want his face in my cunt right now. But the bastard’s still talking, still drawing me into his strange world of urgent lust. “It’s just a bit of fun, you know. You can play, too, if you like. I mean, I bet you’ve imagined… I’ve got toys and tools… have you ever?”

“No… nothing like that, ever…”

“You can use them on me. And let me know if you ever want to try.” 

“You want me to flog you?” I ask, trying to be flippant; when I glance at him there is a look in his eye I can only think of as hungry.

“I want you to tie me to a chair, and gag me with your pants, and flog me until I’m broken and crying,” he growls. 

“And you’d like to do that to me as well?” I can’t help asking.

He breaks into a wide grin. “Plenty of other things I’d like more. Unless—unless you determine that you appreciate bondage, silencing, the crucible of physical pain. You might. But until and unless you do, I’m only curious about it. I can’t say I  _want_ it. I want to see what you’d like to try.”

“I’d like to try you licking my clit until I come, and then going to sleep,” I sigh. “I’m too tired to hash this out right now… I want to come, and I want to sleep. And I don’t,” I add, sitting half up and pointing my finger at his face, “want to have to ride my bike home before I get to.” I flop back down onto to the bed, certain I must have finally irritated him, and too sleepy to care anymore.

Maybe he’s too sleepy to care, either, because he doesn’t move, just blinks at me slowly, a vague smile of amusement on his face, and his great eyes heavy-lidded. He’s not doing much to stop me wanting to get off, for sure. “I’ll not put you out,” he says, “but I don’t know if I can bring you off. If you’ve got the patience, I’m more than happy to try.”

“That’s mine,” I murmur. I run my fingers through his hair and kiss him, lightly on the lips; not too much, making it clear that I want something from him, and now I expect it. And as smoothly and instinctively as breathing, he slides down my body, under the blankets, and makes himself comfortable between my thighs. “I mean,” I add, in correction, “that’s fine—oh, mmm, that’s just… that’s… just… fine.”

He’s as good as his word, and as maddeningly specific as I had said: he gently outlines the tip of my clit with his tongue, and that’s it. There’s no trace of my usual jumpy, ticklish reaction to having my clit touched; I guess I’ve gotten comfortable, or at least abraded, to the point where my only reaction is a moan of pleased satisfaction. It feels marvelous, it’s just what I wanted, and in ten breaths, I am asleep.

{….}

“ _Now_ , Clara.”

“Fuck off, I said,” I reply. 

Bright light shines into my eyes, and I flinch back into the warmth and softness of the bed. It’s a lot softer than my bed, and it’s that fact that wakes me up. 

I’m in the Doctor’s bed.

And by the light, the sun’s just come up within the last few minutes. I can see the light in the bathroom across the hall, and a bit of the thin pale blue light that means morning. I turn over to get away from it, and my whole body yells in pain. So I yell in pain. “Oh, bugger getting up. I’m in a state. Let me sleep.”

“It’s seven o’clock. I’ve got to be back on campus by ten. It’s time for you to be up.” He’s standing by his open closet door, smoothing down the collar of an oddly perfect dark-blue velvet coat, which he’s wearing over the usual faded black T-shirt and black suiting trousers and glossy combat boots. He should look absurd; he looks fantastic. I roll over onto my belly and prop myself up on my elbows.

“What’ve you got to do that’s better than a lie-in with me?” I ask puckishly.

“Teaching an AutoCAD clinic,” he replies, his own voice crisp, as humorless as I’ve ever heard him. “And then a climbing excursion this afternoon.”

“You’re going climbing in that?”

“Get up, Clara,” the Doctor says, like he’s bored of saying it.

I sigh. There’ll be no way to whine this to my advantage; he is in grimly hyper-competent professor mode, and it’s time for me to stiffen my upper lip. But still. “Can’t I get a cup of tea first? Or an Advil?”

He looks over at me with one eyebrow majestically arched, and seems to see me for the first time all day. “Get your kit on,” he says, “we’ll go for coffee in the next town. And I’ve got paracetemol with codeine.”

“You’re an angel sent from heaven,” I say breathlessly, and hurry to round up all my clothes and put them on, between hisses and winces as I discover whole new musculature that had gotten twisted or stretched or pummeled. What the hell had we done last night? I swear I can feel both of my ovaries, and they’re all askew. 

“I would drink coffee from Satan’s arsehole at this point,” he mutters. “Shoes. Get on with it.”

“You kiss your mum with that mouth?” I ask, following him out of the room, into the kitchen, filled with blue and golden sunlight.

“Course not; we’re Scottish. ‘Ere, doll, look what I found.” He produces from that same magical kitchen cabinet what looks like a slightly squashed, slightly crooked cigarette. “A stray souvenir from my last trip to Amsterdam. It’s not great, and it’s practically ‘vintage’, but it’ll take the edge off. And here, you might as well have this now as well.” He taps a tablet from a white bottle, briefly flashing me the label so that I see that it is what he said. I’m not proud; I swallow it dry. My poor spine. I really need to work out more. “I imagine you’re just going to go home and go back to bed.”

“But—coffee,” I say, waggling the spliff at him. “Got a light?”

He tosses me a tiny box of really beautiful, classic wooden matches with bright purple and orange tips. It’s almost a shame to set one on fire, but the thought of being able to get high right now supersedes aesthetic appreciation. I can save the rest. I light the edge of the spliff just after I’ve gone out his front door; he just gives me The Eyebrow again and reaches for the spliff.

We get in the car, and he hands it back. Today the tape player is in the middle of “Beware of Darkness”, and the sound of George Harrison’s voice is nearly enough to put me back to sleep again. I slump against the door, yawning, eyes closed, taking tiny, careful puffs of the joint, doing my best not to cough in front of the Doctor. He just rolls his window down and sings along, “ _Dancing down the sidewalks_ …”

“You’ve got a good voice,” I say. “Ever did any singing?”

“You’re  _not_ taking me to karaoke.”

“Oh, can’t I, please?” I moan sarcastically. I roll my eyes at him, offering him the spliff again. He waves me off. “No, it’s just, take a bloody compliment, would you? Is your ego so incredibly massive you can’t just say, ‘ta, Clara, lovely thing to say, always did want to go on  _X-Factor_ ’?”

“Nope. Can’t.” 

I haven’t got it in me to spar with him this morning. I wish I’d had a gulp of water before we’d left; as it is I’m uncomfortable enough to go the rest of the ride in silence.

Anyway, it’s sort of nice, after a while. It’s a genuinely beautiful day, with clouds on the horizon but none overhead, and the air has a true snap of fall, enough to make me wish I’d brought a warmer jacket. The Doctor’s velvet coat now makes more sense, though I still picture him leaping up mountainsides in dandy-boy tat, not breaking a sweat, like a nimble mountain goat. I snicker to myself; I guess I’m high by now. I stub out the smoldering roach in the car’s ashtray, which contains a vast assortment of odds, ends, and dead bugs. I’m too tired to snark at him, too relaxed by the blue sky, by the charming opening notes of the next song.

The song finishes before he pulls into a parking lot and stops. I have no real idea where we are; I know we’re in Weber, the next town south-east, but I’ve never been there before, as it’s off the major highway that leads towards the college. This is an anonymous strip mall of a place, sharing space with an H&R Block, a dry cleaner, and an aquarium shop. The coffee shop is a bit shabby, but very pleasant, with plenty of charming human touches, like random ceramic figurines, old fabric curtains tacked to the walls, and an actual coin-operated jukebox. 

“Sit,” says the Doctor, and I sit where he indicates, in the furthest table away from the door, away from the windows, but with a fairly clear view outside. But the sun won’t be shining directly upon us. Nice touch. I sink into the booth and immediately put my elbows on the table, and my face in my hands, zoning out.

“Clara,” he says, and I open my eyes to see a very large mug of black coffee and a tall glass of water without ice in it. Gratefully, I finally wash that pill down my gullet with the water, and carefully add a splash of cream from the tiny pitcher on the table, between the salt shaker and the napkin dispenser. Yes, this is a good, old-fashioned caff, the type I’m more used to. I wouldn’t be surprised to see bacon sandwiches on their menu.

The Doctor sits opposite, holding a mug of his own. “They don’t come to the table here; if you want to order anything, go up t’counter.”

“All right,” I say. “Get you anything?” I shrug, completely at a loss as to guess what he eats. “Toast?”

He just shakes his head. “Just coffee, thanks.”

“ _Do_ you eat?”

Finally, the first smile of the day. “Now and then,” he confesses. 

I drink a quarter of my coffee, and go up to the counter, where I order double toast, a banana, and a side of bacon, not too done. The woman at the counter seems to take no notice of my accent, or of how obviously stoned I am; maybe she's used to it, maybe the Doctor comes in here flying and Glaswegian and it's ordinary now. I feel a bit crazed and naughty as I return to the table. “What is this place?” I ask.

“It’s nowhere,” he says. “It’s where I like to go. I’ve never seen anyone from school here. I’m tempted to erase their web page and tear their phone number from the books.”

“I’m starving,” I say.

“Yeah,” he replies, watching the outside world through the windows, rather blankly, but I realize that he’s really just relaxed enough to show clearly how tired he is, and yet how extraordinarily alert. He had time to shave his face and perfect his hair before I’d woken up.

“I must look a fright,” I mumble, raking my fingers through my hair, trying to undo the tangles.

He focuses on me, scanning me from head to where I vanish behind the table, and gives a slight shrug, as if to say, You said it, I didn’t. “You’ve got me for the next hour and change,” he says. “And I would like to hear more from you.”

“About what?” I ask. My food arrives, and I promptly make a bacon sandwich with ketchup.

“About your previous experiences,” he replies. “Your past lovers. Past partners.”

I take the time to very slowly chew and swallow my first bite, buying time. He just keeps looking at me patiently. “Well, it’s not like I’ve had scads,” I say.

“Your last one,” says the Doctor. “The one that made you run away.” He watches as I squirm and shove more food in my mouth. “What was his name?”

I gulp coffee, almost scalding my throat. “Matt—Matthew,” I say in a croak.

“Was he Scottish?” he prods.

“No… he's from Northamps… but we were _in_ Scotland. And it basically ruined my entire life. Bloody awful story, really. I mean, it’s really painful. And embarrassing. And—”

“And just the sort of thing I want to know,” he says.

It’s excellent coffee; I’m fully and absolutely awake now, despite the relaxing effect of the other drugs. And finally eating, after going to bed last night without supper, is like shedding a heavy weight. The pain in my head has gone. Maybe I’m not scared of this anymore; and it might be good to share these details, so that he knows how it happened, and also what not to do. How to be better than the doctors of my past. “I’ll make you a deal,” I say. “I’ll tell you about my painful experience, and you tell me about yours. Tell me about your wife. Your second wife. And about all this… self-flagellation and intimate partner abuse.”

The Doctor laughs, his relaxed state, and maybe the setting, too, seeming to restore his good humor. “It’s a deal.” He grins and spreads his beautiful fingers across the table. 

“You first,” he says. 

_ …to be continued… _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, in case you're wondering, next up is a "flashback" chapter wherein we examine a past relationship of our star-crossed lovers - yes, a "Doctor Matt" [edited to mention that I changed my mind about putting the Doctor's second wife narrative in the next chapter because it would have been too long and miserable... but it's coming...]
> 
> For your reference -  
> The Cocteau Twins song at the beginning: "Great Spangled Fritillary"  
> The snake tattoo on the forearm actually belongs to Jon Pertwee, the third Doctor.  
> Theta Sigma is the Doctor's secret name from his youthful days at the Time Lord Academy.  
> The tattoos on his back are in Gallifreyan.  
> Other tattoos etc. are my creative imagination... :)
> 
> Thanks again for reading!


	7. Thanks for the Pepperoni

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clara tells the Doctor the story (in detail!) of one of her past loves, and what went wrong between her and the sublimely handsome Doctor Matt - and how that launched her into her future. The only way out is through... 
> 
> TW: pregnancy, miscarriage, and social exclusion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reproductive health and all its vagaries are definitely feminist themes, and important themes of "The Only Mystery" as a whole - I don't want to trigger anyone, but confronting these realities is important to me as a writer and a feminist - and I don't believe anyone should be frightened or put off by these things. However, I know that some are, and that's as valid as any other feelings on the matter.
> 
> If any of the subject matter is icky or you're mostly just here for the smut, it's OK to skip this chapter - but you will have a fuller sense of the characters, and how their experiences have shaped their personalities and outlooks, if you do read it. Plus, there are hints of fascinating intrigue which will be explored in future chapters. Also, I hope it's pretty funny, despite its dark turns. :) I hope the informality of the structure is OK - since Clara is narrating this out loud, it's going to be a much looser, imprecise style than her first-person interior narration. Basically, I hope you like it!

_No more common dress or elliptical caress_  
_Don't look into your eyes cause I'm desperately in love_  
_In love, in love_  
_Oh, when you walk in the room everything disappears_  
_When you walk in the room it's a terrible mess_  
_When you walk in the room I start to melt_  
_When you walk in the room I follow you round like a dog_  
_I'm a dog, I'm a dog, I'm a lapdog_  
_I'm your lapdog_

— “Skip Divided,” Thom Yorke

 

“Part of why I really hate even just thinking about that experience is that I just really threw myself at Matt. I know it’s nonsense, a self-victim-blame bit of angsty, youthful shit that I really ought to just get past, but it’s still just a bloody awful struggle and it’s too much work for me to want to do it all the time. So you’d better be appreciative that I’m telling you about it, Doctor. It’s not—well, it’s one of the hardest things in my entire life, and I know that also probably sounds daft, a bit more angsty, youthful bullshit—”

“Clara, please, don’t. I’m listening.” 

“Sorry. I’m stoned, I’m really stoned.”

“Don’t make excuses. You’re right here. I’m looking right at you. You are a grown woman. You can handle this. I can handle it. You’re a person, with feelings and flaws, _and_ you survived it. Go on.”

“Bloody fucking hell, I hate this. I wish this was alcohol.”

“Ha. I’m sure. In whiskey veritas. Eat, and drink your coffee. Take a deep breath. All right? Now, go on. You don’t have to look at me. Look out at the road, the lovely day outside. You’re far away from there, and no one knows you here.”

{…}

Right, then. Okay. So. This was four years ago. I’d accepted a six-month post working with Hywind Scotland, you know, the massive offshore wind turbine installation. Back then it was still in the assessment stage, and a potential site for it was off the coast of Barra, instead of Peterhead on the other coast. At that point it was a good old fashioned scientific research study, with some British engineers, a native wildlife specialist, a radar bloke, a couple of physicians, couple of seabed geology experts, a Dutch woman who’d overseen the Blue H project in the Netherlands, and two energy consultants who’d been at the Volturn site in Maine. And me, the factotum, research assistant, secretary, whatever you want to call it, typing up everyone’s notes every night after tea. I was so excited. It was my first proper job, a solid journey away from everything I’d known.

And like, really far away. I’d not been to the Hebrides before, or most anywhere much besides England itself. Like I’d only been to Edinburgh once and Cardiff once, and I’ve still never gone to Ireland. I didn't care all that much for the seaside—I grew up at the seaside. I'm over it. Instead of traveling, me dad and I, and my mum, back when she was alive, mostly went for techno thrills—the cinema, natural history museums, robotics meet-ups, an' that. But secretly I _did_ want to travel round. See the world in all its splendor. Breathe different air.

It was such an adventure. Going from an urban setting out to this part of the world that's so extraordinarily lonely, so isolated, so much wind and sky and sand, a town so remote that no one locks their doors—it was like a dream. So that might have something to do with it, anyway; I wasn’t really in my right mind the whole time. I was just so excited to be there. Proving myself, finally, instead of just thinking about it. Second law of thermodynamics. Once I started running downhill, I couldn't stop.

*sigh* So; the team.

It was a fairly small project, actually, just twenty-five people including me, and sorting the lab books and emails really was quite simple for me, so I actually did a lot more beyond that, as did we all. With a small group like that, everyone sort of learnt to do everything, from cooking the tea to sorting out a boat motor. We all lived in temporary modular housing—basically fancy square pop-up tents, just rather big ones, with metal frameworks, bin-bag walls, an' that. And we spent almost all our time together working in small groups, and all of us got together at breakfast and tea, and if anyone had a bottle or a bag of weed in the evenings. I was the best roller of spliffs on the whole team; quite nice. Not everybody smoked, but nobody minded. We were all very "live and let live." Sort of.

But I got on well with everyone, even though I’d never met any of them before. But I was just staggered when I first met Matt, who was one of the seabed geologists. He wasn’t the head of the project or anything, but it’s almost like all of us were just working for him, working for his approval. Maybe just me, again, there.

_“Staggered. Hmm!” says the Doctor, raising his eyebrows. He nibbles on an abandoned crust from my cobbled-together bacon sandwich._

Really, that’s the only word that fits—I was staggered at the first sight of him. Just shockingly handsome. Very tall, and very slim, and a bit bendy, but only in a way that makes him graceful. Properly graceful, actually. Even if his arms and legs always threatened to flap about, and he tripped over his own boots quite a bit, he always caught himself and made his pratfalls look a bit more like a dance. He was quite physical. He was very into footy when he was a boy, apparently, and he definitely had the energy for it. It hung all around him at all times, even when he was still—just this tremendous glow of energy, always sparkling through his eyes. Even though his eyes were a bit small, really, and too close together, and his forehead and chin both went on for ages—really, he just wasn’t really terribly good-looking, when I think back on it. Except—oh, he was. Everyone just sort of basked in his charisma and his beauty and everyone wanted to be near him all the time. Funny and kind and a bit of a clown, always chasing someone else’s smile.

I don’t know why I use the past tense. It makes it sound like he’s dead. He’s just fine, I’m sure. He’s still out there somewhere. Maybe that’s the bit I can’t stand. I wish that when I left, it would have just erased him from all of existence, except in memories. And the memories aren’t ones I want, anyway.

Well, some of them are a bit nice. It’s all just embarrassing in hindsight. Anyway. Just the most magnificent looking bloke I’d ever seen in my life, and I wanted me some o’ that. And I didn’t see any reason why I shouldn’t have.

Anyway, like I said, we all got to be good mates, but even in a group that small there tend to be natural groupings, little cliques, almost. And I made absolutely sure I was as close to Matt as I could be. I laid on all the charm and the wiles, and he liked me a lot, as we were two of the youngest. Obviously I was the very youngest, I hadn’t finished my masters' quite yet, and everyone knew that this project was essential for me to get the necessary research and experience for me to present my final paper. Everyone was very helpful to everyone else. And I was good at, or I thought I was good at, constantly picking Matt’s brains about his own masters’ and doctoral experiences, even though I was only going for a degree in administration, and he was already doing post-post-doctoral work in coastal substrate geology. But he’d done a shedload of travel round the world—Java, and Death Valley, and South Africa, and Tasmanian Antarctica, and he'd been very much in demand. I could see why. Really brilliant fellow, and ever so friendly and charming and generous. I stuck to him like glue. I hoped it came across as me tucking myself under his wing, being so fascinated by applied sciences. But of course it was obvious to everyone what I was about.

Well, obvious to everyone but him, I guess. Not sure. Anyway.

So there were these weekly trips we had to do to fetch supplies—food and bog roll and phone chargers and glove liners and that sort. Everyone took their turn so nobody would get cabin fever too badly. I saw my chance when Gerta, the project lead, sprained her ankle and couldn’t go on the trip with Matt that had already been scheduled for the weekend, so I helpfully volunteered to go in her stead. He seemed well pleased with my initiative, and we set out in the van to go to Castlebay.

The other nice bit about the supply run was that you got to stay overnight in a room in an actual bed-and-breakfast—emphasis on the bed. It was hard to tell which to get more excited about—a nice bed inside an actual permanent building, or the opportunity to go use an actual flush toilet instead of the composting Port-a-loo that we all learnt to despise. While we did the shopping, I nattered on about being excited to hopefully take a hot bath, horizontally. He just smiled at me. Bloody gorgeous, him; he could make a shabby anorak look like runway fashion. Honestly he really did just look like a model. He had that sort of body, and that big rectangular head, and marvelous, thick, swoopy, brown, floppy hair, and just the top two buttons being undone on a shirt were incredibly sexy just because you could see his neck. And he liked to wear a collared shirt, braces, and a bow tie, just to be whimsical, on those days he wasn’t out on the boat.

So of course that night we’ve had a big hot supper, cockles and potatoes, and a wonderful old-fashioned trifle for pudding, and just scads of single-malt whisky; and after that I follow him back to his room, laughing, pretending I’m drunker than I am, drawing out a funny story for as long as I possibly could so he wouldn’t suspect anything. But he didn’t seem to mind. When we got to his room I followed him in and he sat down on the bed, and I closed the door behind me, and sat next to him. He looked at me with his eyebrows way up, giving me kind of the startled damsel look. His eyes were this unusual, rare, dark-golden amber color; I’ve really not seen it on anyone else.

“Shame we booked both rooms,” I said to him, touching the edge of his ear. He actually shook away my hand, like a horse shaking off a fly, and as he reached up to rub his ear I realized I’d tickled him. So I took hold of the edges of his zip-up fleece jacket, firmly and definitively—not touching him, but making it clear that I was just about to, and continued, “We really could have just done with the double.”

“Eh?” he said, like an imbecile; totally baffled. Either really genuinely surprised to have me coming on to him, or one of the best acting jobs I’ve ever seen. Doesn’t really matter now but I still can’t stop wondering which it was. Most importantly he didn’t look scared. As long as they’re not scared, I can get in there. God, I sound a bit of a whore, don’t I?

_The Doctor rolls his eyes a little. “You dinna. You know your power, that’s all. Go on; I’m riveted.”_

Right. So. Ha ha. So I go, “Matthew.” I take off my jumper, and then I take off the T-shirt I have on underneath, and take one of his hands, and put it on my right tit. And I go, “I know you want this. And you know I want this.” Yeah, I put my hand right down there, right on his todger, and I smiled at him again. And I said, “We’re inside. It’s just us. Let’s us do, then.”

I can’t believe myself sometimes. But God, I had to have him. And it worked. He started kissing me for all he was worth, and he got my bra off straight away, and started snogging my tits like a starving man at a buffet. He really did want that; those. I had made a point of hanging around in a clingy top whenever it was warm enough. I’m a bit of a villain. I know my tits are nice. And I know they’re great bait. He was a breast man, for sure, so that was to my advantage. We ended up fucking with most of his clothes still on, he was so up for it.

He got off straight away, as I thought he might. I was willing to just be satisfied with that for now; I was just happy to have shagged him. But he really didn’t stop there. He—he—oh, that bastard. Um, he drew me that hot bath I’d been on about, and he got in it with me, and a bunch of water ended up on the floor. But it was—frankly, it was great... even though he—well, for the first time, he made me go down on him.

_“ **Made** you?” The Doctor sounds coolly skeptical._

Erm… well… not, like, forced me. I really wanted to as well. I… I like it. He sussed that out. I really wish he’d never known about that, or that I’d been—I dunno, stronger. Less addicted. God, I still dream about it. I almost liked sucking his cock more than fucking it. Almost. It was all so good. Really, really... sorry.

_"I'm not bothered. I like to hear this. I like knowing you've got an appetite. This chap doesn't threaten me. He had it, and now I have it. Logical progression. But I can tell you're circling around telling me the bad bits. Tell me the bad bits. I want to know. I want to know **you** , Clara." The Doctor reaches across the table and takes my hand reassuringly._

Thanks. That helps. I wish he'd been more like you. I guess we are who we are, when it happens, eh? *sigh* Anyway, we made love all night, literally until the sun came up. I mean, granted, it was summer, and the sun came up at around half two, but still. Just couldn't quite get enough. It was the best I'd ever had; he was gentle and thorough and enthusiastic and he never hurt me, even accidentally. It wasn't daring or weird or... you know, like you. Enlightening? Heh... It just left me feeling grateful that he wanted me, too.

Before I fell asleep I knew I was in love with him. That I had been in love with him for ages. I had just thought that I fancied him, and he was sort of a goal to attain, a notch in my belt, the hottest guy I’d ever managed to pull, but no, it went well beyond that. I suppose the sensible side of me knows that it was just infatuation, especially with what happened later. But it's the kind of feeling that leaves a scar. Like it cuts a part of me away. Ugh, what a horrible metaphor. Forget I said that.

So the next day we return to the project site with all the supplies, and though we hadn’t discussed it, we both sort of agreed to keep things quiet to avoid causing too much friction. Which was utterly stupid. It was completely freaking obvious; instead of just me following him round like a puppy, he just started being especially nice to me. And we just could not keep our hands off each other. Every chance we got, we’d nip off somewhere for a bit of it. And most of the time that took the form of me giving him head, because it was the easiest thing to do, with the least amount of undressing necessary. Though once or twice he would have me take off my top so he could come on my tits. Sounds dodgy but I honestly liked it just as much as he did. I would just put me top back on and go about my business with his spunk drying on my skin. When I couldn’t have him I would sneak to the Port-a-loo and bang one out myself; I was so incredibly randy I didn’t even mind the awfulness of the toilet. I just needed a moment, so I could think of something other than the look on his face when he came inside me.

_"Oh."_

Yeah. That’s the bad part. You understand. I was on the pill, and I was in love with him; I wanted to feel him, you know, all that bollocks. I wanted skin on skin. I wanted his come inside me. It made me high. The project was going brilliantly. I was doing really good work, even with all that nonsense going on; I was just floating on air. I’d never been so happy. I really wanted to tell the rest of the team that we were together, but something just… stayed my hand. I didn’t even really talk about it with him. I didn’t want to risk it, take any chance that my happiness could be ruined, just because I felt like the next step was to tell others about it, to make it official that way. When it wasn’t even official between us. It’s just… oh, God, I wanted him so much. Every time I shagged him I’d feel satisfied for a little while but it was never enough. I never wanted to be not fucking him. I fantasized about us fucking in every single space we were in, together or separate; I’d think about fucking him while he drove the boat, or while I was sitting at the computer typing in the day’s numbers, or while I was dishing up the tea, or while he was taking out new peat for the toilet. I’d just be mounted on him, slowly fucking, while we otherwise went about our day.

Mad. I know. I’m a bit mad.

Anyway. 

One day, around the start of August, about seven weeks after we had arrived on Barra and started the project, I was helping out on fixing a bent pole on one of the tents, and I felt a pain in my guts. I tried to ignore it—sometimes eating cabbage soup made me a bit gassy—but it just got worse, and it spread, all through my hips and back and down my legs. Dull pain getting suddenly sharp. I looked up and said out loud, “There’s something wrong.”

I was doing the repairs with Javier, one of the engineers, lovely Algerian chap, and he said to me, “You just turned an amazing shade of greenish-gray.” 

I tried to laugh, but couldn't; it felt like I was being stabbed on the inside. I leaned against the pole, trying to breathe it out, but it wouldn’t go away, no matter what I did. Gerta, and James, and Colleen came round and started making fun of me, placing bets on how horrible my farts were going to be. I could barely see them, the pain was so bad. I was cold all over and dizzy.

So Gerta gets in my face, and says, “Are you pregnant?”

I tried to think of the timing of my last period. It had been a while. “No, I’m on the pill,” I said. 

James just kind of looked at me, all friendliness gone. “Well, if anyone can fuck through that, it’d be you two.”

I wanted to punch him, but I couldn't do anything. I couldn't even talk. I was too preoccupied moaning and then yelling as the pain got even worse. Gerta and Colleen took one arm each and frog-marched me across the shingle to the medical pod, and I’m glad they were holding me because I couldn’t have walked on my own.

The doctor, well nurse practitioner really, who was on shift then was named Sandra. Really nice woman. Really appreciate her. She wrapped me in a hot blanket and told me to take my trousers off. There was blood all down my thighs, soaking through the arse of my nice, new, crisp undyed denim trousers that I'd just gotten. I started crying. Over a pair of keks. But they were brand-new and I was so proud of them. I begged to take a shower, but Sandra told me I couldn’t until later. It would have been worse except she got me well loaded up with Demerol, and a pair of fleece joggers, a giant gauze pad, and lots of hot blankets. By then, I understood what was happening.

I’d never miscarried before, not that I knew of, anyway. It happens. It usually doesn't hurt quite so much, but I think this was ectopic, stuck way up high right outside my ovary. So it's good that it didn't quite take. I wasn’t unhappy about it in the moment; I’m not unhappy about it now. I had been stupid, and some vagary of genetics or whatever saved me from having to sort out what to do. Absolutely I did _not_ want to be pregnant, and I did not want to have a baby. I still don’t; I want kids, yeah, but they don’t have to be “mine,” you know. But that was _not_ the right time. But, like, God, it really hurt a lot, and I felt like a complete nonce. So much for “clever Clara.”

After the bleeding slowed down a bit, when Sandra went to have her tea, Matt came in. I was alone in the pod, in bed, with the Demerol starting to wear off. He looked like cold shit. _He_ looked sort of greenish-gray. But even so, I still felt so much crazy, mad love for him. I begged him to get into bed with me, to keep me warm. Crying, snot on my lip, begging like a complete tosser; the prettiest lass in all the land. For some reason he did get onto the cot with me, wrapping his arms around me and holding me. I told him, “I’m in love with you.” And he didn’t say anything to that, just petted my hair and kissed my forehead, as if he’d been terribly worried about me. Glad I was safe. Ugh, I’m doing it even now—putting words in his mouth, in his head, writing his intentions for him. It’s not his fault I didn’t know him. Well, it sort of is. Nobody told him to put his dick in my fucking mouth, did they?

Right then Sandra came back in, and saw us in bed together. Matt starts babbling, saying he was just trying to keep me warm; Sandra used her finger to point out the blanket warming drawer, next to the main heater for the room, of course. She didn't even have to say anything. Matt turned a really interesting color, and made himself scarce.

Sandra had brought me a thermos of hot soup, and she even poured it into the mug for me, but I’ll never forget her face. The disappointment. And I could tell that the worst part of it was that she knew it was Matt who had gotten me pregnant in the first place. I felt weirdly diminished, slutty, ashamed, even though I honestly don’t have any shame about any slutty behavior I’ve ever engaged in, because fuck that… but in that case I could tell something was different. But I was still kind of confused; it wasn’t like I’d demanded she perform an abortion just for kicks. Matt and I had fucked. (A lot.) There’d been the ordinary consequence. And Sandra was a nurse, and a feminist—all us women on the project openly and proudly proclaimed it. Why would she look down on me?

I decided to let it go for the night, though, and went back to my own bunk and my own bed. I’d missed an evening’s notation, but the schedule was built to accommodate occasional delays; as long as I was back on task by the next night, it’d be okay. So I wake up the next morning feeling totally fine, almost as if nothing happened, and get dressed and go down to breakfast like usual.

And when I walked in the room, everyone went silent, and looked at me. It was like a fever dream of paranoia was being enacted in real life. I just go to get a coffee. James is stood there next to the carafe. “All right?” he asked me.

I said, “Yeah.”

He says, “Haven’t seen Matt yet,” casual. “Is he back in your room?" 

I stare at James with shock, and hear a few snickers behind me, but I can’t tell who had done it.

Yeah, it turned into that.

I told James to grow up, and got my porridge, and sat down and ate it, with dignity, like an adult. By myself. 

Nobody talked to me at all until tea break. It. Was. Fuckin’ awful. I did not have to go through this shit, back at school. I mean, I saw it happen to other people. I knew what was going on. But I’d never had to be piggy in the middle before. I’ve been the girl who went up and was kind after other people had been rotten; I felt like that ought to have gained me some karma points, or whatever. God, it doesn’t work that way, does it? Either be decent, or don’t—being nice to the ugly kid a few times doesn’t mean it won’t be your turn to be the ugly kid. The ugly kid that everyone hates, and who thought the people round her were friends, and not two-faced ratbags. 

It wasn’t everyone. It’s not right to make it sound like everyone was terrible. Colleen and Anna sat with me at tea, and were kind, and rubbed my back an' that. Colleen told me she miscarried a few years back, and that her husband was almost more upset than she was. Then Anna thumped her a solid one on the arm. Colleen’s like, “Wot?” and then “Oh, bugger,” so I demanded an explanation. They wouldn’t tell me in the canteen; they made me finish my tea and go outside. Where it was windy and rainy. And then Anna said,

“He’s married, you know. He’s been married seven years.” 

I said, right. Feeling absolutely nothing. Nothing at all. 

“The wife’s in India, on her own research sortie,” Colleen added. Oh. So. Everyone knew a lot, quite a lot about Doctor Matt, and his partner in matrimonial bliss. This was my first project. Almost all twenty-four other researchers had worked together at least once, some of them repeatedly. So yes, everyone knew, and everyone knew. 

She’d been in India for almost ten solid months. Rumor mill wondered if she had any intentions of returning. It wasn’t fair to Doctor Matt, that good old guy, that well nice bloke, for her work to keep her away for such extended amounts of time. Also, wasn’t she older? Like, way older? Like, cradle-robbing level older? Matt wasn’t yet thirty. He’d still really been so young when he got married. But he had always been such a good old guy; never a dog, like most blokes’d be when without the wife. On the other hand he did not wear a wedding ring. Neither did she! It’d been her idea, even! Well. 

Well. So. 

I went back to my bunk and got in it. 

In case you’re keeping track, that’s two days without reportage. So my phone rang at midnight, usually the time when I sent the day’s data back to the institute. I didn’t answer it. I’m weirdly paralyzed. Actually not really paralyzed; I got up in the night and went back to the medical pod, and asked Thom, the other physician, if he’d please give me another shot of Demerol. 

Thom’s a decent chap. I don’t think he was one of the ones who sniggered at me. But of course he told me I couldn’t have anymore Demerol, and unless I was broken in half, I’d have to make do with ibuprofen. So I asked Thom if he had any whisky on him. He was kind. He told me no, because it wasn’t safe because of yesterday’s narcotics. He gave me a hug, and told me he was sorry. So I took some ibuprofen and went to my desk in the server room and compiled the last two days’ data, and did a report, and sent the lot to the institute, with a note that said _Sorry, came over poorly, am fine now._  

I didn’t sleep, of course. 

The next day, Matt wasn’t at breakfast. I asked Colleen after him, and she reminded me that he was out on the boat that day, with Javier. Wouldn’t be back until after tea. I got on with the day, making my usual rounds of chores and collecting data, and started sending Matt texts every time I had a moment to stop. I had to have sent him twenty texts before he replied, calling me back instead of sending text. Which would have made sense. As soon as I heard his voice, though, I started shouting. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

He shouted back, the bastard. “Why didn’t _you_ tell me you were pregnant?”

I said, “I didn’t _know_! Your turn!”

It took him a while before he said anything. “She’s got her work, just like I’ve got mine,” blah blah blah. “We have an understanding. I’m sure she’s having it off with Hot Sanjay as we speak.”

So I told him, “I’m not in love with you anymore.”

And he said, “That’s probably for the best.”

It didn’t really get any better from there. We tried to just play it off, right, put it behind us. But socially that was impossible. Just this inexorable wave of judgy pettiness kept hitting me. Whispering and ganging up and everyone being oh, so very polite. God, it was fucking unbearable. I finally couldn’t take it, and told Matt to call off his dogs, and have them give me a break. He flipped out, got hostile. When he’s really angry he gets cold, unmoving, unfeeling, like stone. _He_ was angry at _me_. Can you believe it? He claimed that he’d been the one treated like shit since my “thing”—yeah, that’s how he said it. My “thing,” like it was a decision to go blonde—and how everyone is defending me.

I just kind of stare at him, and I ask him, “What’s your wife’s name?”

“River Song,” he said, all tight and weird like that. "It's Melody, really, but she had it legally changed. I don't know why."

I was like, really? She's a fuckin' hippie? But I didn’t say anything; I just turned aside and went about my business, collecting the stupid fucking data about the stupid fucking wind turbines. And that night, when I was done with the reports, I stole a little bandwidth, and looked up _River Song India_ on Google.

Big hit. Immediately. Could only be her. Her wikipedia page is enough to make one weep. She's really amazing-looking, for one thing. And just the few highlights that came up in the search were super intimidating. This bird is accomplished, like whoa. It almost made my mouth water, to see someone who’d done so much, and so much amazing stuff, in one lifetime. I mean, yeah, she’s older—she’s actually still a bit younger than you. Ha, ha. Oh, God. Oh, God!

_“Yes. I was alive when salt was invented. Please go on.”_

I just had a thought of the two of you together. She’s gorgeous. You’d make… an amazingly perfect couple. Right… yes. So I found an email address for her, and I wrote her a message, the bulk of which message was: “Are your academic administrative needs being met to the fullest possibility and your specific needs? If not, please consider me; I am available immediately.” She wrote back, like, two days later, and was like, “C’mon out. I’ll book a flight. Look forward to meeting you. I take it that you know my husband Matthew.”

{…}

“So that’s it,” I say, shrugging, tipping my empty coffee mug from side to side. “ I got the project a replacement admin, and took most of my warm clothes to the charity shop in Castlebay, and got on the ferry and then got on a flight to a country I'd never been to. And then I worked with River, at the women's centre, in Puna. So that’s why I kind of didn’t want to talk about it. It’s… not great. Doesn't make me look very good.”

“Well, you’ve nothing to worry about with me, on that score,” the Doctor says. He has folded a napkin into an origami elephant while I was staring at the sunny day outside. “I appreciate you telling me.” He reaches out to me again, and squeezes my palm with his fingertips. "What you experienced is very difficult, in anyone's life."

“So when do I get to hear about your greatest failure?” I ask brightly.

He smiles at me a bit sadly, ruefully. “If that’s your greatest failure, you will rule the earth by teatime,” he says. “My relationships weren’t my greatest failures. I’m proud of the depth of feeling contained in each. I regret some aspects, but I don’t consider them failures. And you shouldn’t consider a miscarriage a failure, either.”

“Oh, I don’t,” I say. “I absolutely do not. It's just that I failed to… armor myself adequately against Matt… against those feelings...”

“If he’s as fanciable as you say he is, there’s nothing you could have done about that. You didn’t even know why you maybe should. Never apologize for falling in love; not even to yourself, never apologize. It is what we are born for. Besides, I’m a lot more interested in finding out exactly what it is that you find so enjoyable about fellatio.”

There it is; the wolfish, rakish smile, with the dimples. It warms my heart. I hope he’s not onto something with the falling-in-love dosh… I really do not want that. I really, really do not want that. Not with him. Not now. This is not the time, not the place, not the man. But I want to, and I don’t resist, getting out of my chair and sitting next to him on the hard wooden booth, and leaning my head against his shoulder and hugging him with one arm. He makes a happy grumbling sound deep in his chest, and returns the embrace of one arm, giving me a quick squeeze.

And it means just everything, everything in the world.

_…to be continued…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading... next time, back to the smut with what I hope is a "bunk-trajectory" PWP!


	8. I Dig Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor and Clara decide, after a hiatus, to flip their usual dom/sub script, to hilarious and extremely orgasmic result. (Total smut, almost no plot development, have fun!)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay - as so often happens, life got in the way in a MAJOR way. There's no excuse, really, but still, I humbly bow my head and beg your forgiveness.

That complete, utter, gold-plated bastard, the Doctor, makes me wait more than a month for our next play date.

Almost five full weeks.

It’s not bloody fair.

And yes, I start to freak out after less than a week. I’m only human; I have needs.

Sunday night, Monday, Tuesday, agonizing Wednesday—I can’t sleep, lying half-dazed awake until dawn, with everything replaying in my mind in an endless loop—the feel of his cock inside me, the sloshing wet sound of his hand thrusting in and out of my cunt, the wicked glint in his eye, his grin when he saw how hard he’d made me come. His intense solemnity at his own orgasm, like he was trying his best to engrave it in his memory. The feeling of crisis inside me, almost scared of just how hard I was about to come, and his long, fine hands cradling me, holding me firm and steady through all of it. My outlandish joy at his erection, like I’d been given a gift... but also, really, how little it came into play (so to speak); it was just fun, marvelous, another brilliant part of him that I could enjoy.

And yet, oh, how I love it; how I want it; how I miss it.

But also just him. All of him. Cock, mouth, fingers, bum, scars, back, chest; his sounds, his scents, his bones, his rhythms. The way he says my name, in a purr or a snarl. The snap of his palm on my breast, and how it made my nipples so hard they ached.

This is hell.

I spend days in a numb haze of sleep deprivation and damp pants. Over the next few days, with no news to be found at the library, find the ecstatic longing has curdled into a proper strop.

By Friday morning, I’ve had it; I stomp to his office. My face is hot with fury. I’m wearing the blue cotton sweater with a deep V-neck that, yes, shows off my tits to distracting perfection, hoop earrings, scraped-back ponytail—proper “wronged, lustful woman” cosplay.

A portrait of calm, the Doctor is sat at his desk, lined face lit by his computer monitors, infuriatingly sexy in skinny black denim, boots, and a dark gray cable-knit sweater dotted with moth holes. And glasses, again, but different ones than he wears out in the world; these ones have clear plastic frames and chunky, obvious bifocal lines in the lenses. I don’t like them; I prefer the black frames. He’s unshaven, again, and his hair is a dull, tangled mess that looks like he hasn’t bothered to comb it for a few days. It’s not the very best look, but I still want to rip his clothes off and mount him where he sits.

He just glances at me without interest or focus. It’s the way he looks at most people, as though they’re on a 45% opacity filter, and figures it’s more polite not to point that out.

I say nothing aloud, but hand over a manila envelope with a note in it (my note just says "MORE?!"). He takes the envelope without looking at me, and mutters, “Hmm.”

The only thing that really saves his life, right then, is a student coming into the office, holding what looks like a floppy doll made from purple plasticine. The Doctor perks up, quite instantly jolly, very present and interested, eyes sparkling bright. “Henry! Yes, come in… ah, that’s your sculpture, is it? Eh, well, from here, it looks like your additive material needs a wee adjustment to allow the final product to take on… proper… rigidity.”

And at that, the Doctor’s eyes find mine, sharp, brief, direct, like needles made of ice. All that sparkling, focused into a diamond laser, letting me know he can read my mind.

The moment passes as quickly as it came, and the Doctor is back to nattering cheerfully at his student. “Interesting article about it in the new issue of _JVAT_. Should be on the shelf… at the library.” Grinning, the Doctor turns to me, and asks, “Is there something you need?”

I smile nervously, and shake my head, silently backing away until I’m out in the hall. I go back to my office, and thoughtlessly shuffle papers and enter data until my lunch break starts, and I can rush to the library, only to sit there alone, thumbing through an issue of _Wired_ without looking at it.

With only five minutes left of my lunch hour, he appears, all humming, absent-minded distraction, eyeglasses perched above his forehead in his dull gray curls. I leap up and stand in front of him, impeding his progress. “Doctor,” I say crisply. “A word.”

He smirks, and replies, still not looking at me. “Ms. Oswald.”

“Do you have a time frame? For _when_ you’re going to deal with me?” I demand-whisper.

He just shrugs vaguely, eyes skimming the covers of the magazines. “Nah; space, space is good, I like space.”

“ _I_ don’t want space. I don’t _need_ space.”

“S’pose I _do_ , but.” He does look at me then, but only for a quick, blurry moment. “And you—you do too, even if you don’t get that now…” He grabs a magazine, slides his glasses into place, and begins to read it. “’S better this way, and you should know it. Ye should take the opportunity, yeah, you hear, the _opportunity_ to concentrate on your life and your work here. Becoming a force to represent women in academic science, wasn't it? Fine feminist manifesto, that. Be grateful that ye are more than just a fucksocket.”

I gasp. “You _what_ –?!”

“What? I said ye’re _more_. Anyway, I’m busy. You’re not a priority right now.”

“Not a—! Look, Doctor, you can’t just… do that sort of… introduce someone to that sort of—”

“Get a grip on yourself, Clara Oswald. I’m not your boyfriend.”

“You’re not my _anything_!” I protest.

The Doctor doesn’t reply, only gives me a thin-lipped, narrow-eyed smile, a sarcastic, bitter smile. A disappointed smile. "I like to think we're friends."

I shake my head, trying to shake some making-sense circuits back together. “I mean—are we done? Are you done with me?” I ask, trying not to panic.

His eyebrows go up. “Not unless that’s what you want,” he replies, sounding genuinely surprised.

Now I’m just confused. Better that, though, than hurt. “No, it’s… it’s not. So... I just have to wait round until you have time for me?”

He shrugs, and sighs, put upon. “I thought you understood that already. _You_ get busy, I’ll wait for you. _You_ don’t have time; _I_ wait. Crikey, we’re not teenagers.”

Right. Yes. Of course. That’s all right, then. And yet. “Problem is, I want you,” I say, and add, glancing round to make sure no one is watching us, “I’m going mad, ain’t I.”

“You barely like me. You scarcely even know me. If you get het up, have a wank,” he says, returning to the magazine.

I’m angry all over again. “That’s cute, that is. Don’t patronize me, Doctor. You started this.” I put my hands on my hips, and stare at him until he returns my gaze. “I want _something_. Something more than… what I can do. Myself.”

He’s properly looking at me, finally. “So much for a woman's hard-fought sexual autonomy! Betty Dodson will be so disappointed,” he says. Smiling properly, too. “She wrote a fine book once, _Liberating Masturbation_. I recommend it. We’ll make a plan, then. Something to occupy your mind in the meantime. But there’s just no proper time to play anytime soon, I’m afraid. You can see my schedule whenever you like.” He has a point—according to his schedule on his department calendar, his next several weeks are peppered with presentations and special weekend classes, more than half of them out of town. No wonder he doesn’t bother to shave on Mondays. Or Tuesdays, or most Fridays, it looks like.

He continues, “Think about what you’d like to do. Imagine it. In detail. And remember it. And get a better vibrator. But mostly, please, remember why you’re here, at this college. Remember your work and your purpose. It’s too important to faff about with just because you’ve got an itch below the belt. Certainly, mine is.”

I roll my eyes, but I nod in agreement.

“One thought to start you off with,” he adds. He sets down the magazine, and his gaze meets mine. “For when the time allows.”

“Yeah?” I ask in a whisper.

“When next we play, dominate the fuck out of me,” he says.

I blink a few times.

In a low, whispery voice, he explains. “Oppress me. Degrade me. Make me do as you say, with harsh consequences for disobedience. Use your annoyance. Cultivate it. Stoke your anger, your feelings of neglect. Hurt me. I deserve it.” His easy smile grows and warps into a wicked half-snarl, wicked to match his whisper. “I’m a dog. Make me _your_ dog.”

I can’t speak. I make a quiet noise in the top of my throat, and nod once again. He responds with a grin, loosening the reply card in the magazine, and sliding it to the top margin, as if reminding me that I know how this is done. “I’ll be in touch. No calls, no emails. And no more stunts like you pulled today; there’s no reason for you to be in my office. I’m not coming to _your_ office, stuffing your envelopes. Interoffice mail works perfectly well. Keep an eye on it.” He pats me on the arm, shelves the magazine, and meanders away.

I can’t manage to make it through the rest of the day without masturbating in the ladies’ toilet in the basement of the building, my middle finger stabbing down on my clit, silently repeating, _Fuck you. Fuck you._ If that’s what he wants, I’m game. I’ll come up with really terrible punishments for him. He scarcely knows me, either, if he thinks that I need to be baited into doing harsh and dirty things. I look forward to showing him the error of his ways.

[….]

Don’t be alarmed. We sorted this out in some detail beforehand.

Opportunity strikes. It’s the fall interval, a week off from classes before mid-term exams. My house mates go out of town on an anniversary trip to Cabo San Lucas. Under other circumstances I’d have been madly jealous; this time I help them shift their luggage into the car and smile sweetly as I wave goodbye.

Saturday evening, the Doctor arrives at my side door around 6:30, looking very handsome, his angular face freshly clean-shaven and obviously moisturized, silver hair in a glorious mass of shining waves. I think he's even put on lip balm. Black pinstriped suit trousers, black velvet coat, voluminous multicolored knitted scarf, and a thin white T-shirt with a print faded into unintelligibility. And he’s smoking a cigarette, of all things.

I open the door and let him in. He’s never been here before; I suggested that he come in through the kitchen, rather than the front, because the stairs to my room can be more directly accessed that way.

It’s a clove cigarette he’s smoking. I haven’t smelt one of those in ages. His strange, sharp perfection clashes madly with the interior of this shaggy hippie house, with chili peppers drying on a string on the wall and the bong and XBox in the living room.

He smiles pleasantly, and asks, “All as arranged?”

“All as arranged,” I answer.

He nods crisply. “Same.”

The first thing I do is smack him, backhanded, in the face.

His expression of surprise is excellent; the fact that I made him stagger, doubly so.

“Put that fucking thing out,” I snarl at him. “It’s disgusting. At your age?” I brace my hands on my hips and glare. “What are you doing, standing there with your gob hung open? Get on your fucking knees.”

Somewhat dazedly, he crushes out the clove in an ashtray I’ve set next to the kitchen sink, and slowly sinks to his knees in front of me. I stare at him, my heart pounding, breathing hard, oddly humbled by his silent compliance. He leans forward and wraps his arm around my left leg, pressing his slapped cheek into my thigh, nuzzling the soft fabric of my trouser leg.

I yelp in surprise, and shout, “Let go. Stop that.”

When he retreats, face downcast and eyes on the floor, he’s licking the inside corner of his mouth. I’m suddenly concerned that he might have bitten himself. Breaking character for a moment, I ask softly, “You all right, Doctor?”

He looks up at me, his eyes glittering, his face flushed where I slapped him, and says, flashing his teeth, “I’m perfectly all right, wee girl.”

I grin in response. “Not so wee tonight, you mongrel,” I reply. He chuckles, and it’s a struggle not to stroke his hair, to just join him on the floor for a kiss. But, as he insisted, he’s not my boyfriend; he’s not my anything. Except he’s everything right now. I make sure my voice is stern when I speak again. “You address me as ma’am, or Ms. Oswald, or you’ll get a smack. Do you understand?”

He nods, smiling, eyes still on me, and a thrill travels through my entire body. With effort, I wipe the smile off my face, and say, “Now. Go upstairs. My room and the toilet are the only open doors; don't touch the others. Scrub your hands, your face, your nasty, dirty todger, and brush your teeth, get all that clove nastiness out of your mouth. I don’t want to see you again until you’re properly clean. Understood?”

“Absolutely, Miss Oswald.”

Rules are rules, and he's eager to break them already. I slap him again, this time with my fingers and palm, not quite as hard as before. But with some force, so he knows I’m not “faffing about.” Make him appreciate any kindness I deign to provide. “Ms.,” I correct.

I walk away, head for the staircase, and pad through the hallway to my room. I’ve tidied it within an inch of its life, and decorated it with candles and fairy lights. I wait until he goes into the toilet and shuts the door, then I run back downstairs and grab the bong, returning to my room double-time. He knows to give me a few minutes—to wait until he hears the music before he follows me—but I’m absolutely eager to begin and happy to rush. I strip off my keks and sweatshirt, leaving me in my laciest, prettiest bra and knickers; impulsively I take the knickers off, too, before wrapping myself in the Japanese silk robe I’ve carted with me all the way from India and never had the chance to wear until now. It somehow still smells of cardamom and nag champa.

I sit in the chair in front of my vanity table (a leftover from a past housemate that I’m grateful for) and stuff a few twiddles of cannabis bud into the bowl of the bong, flicking a lighter across the plant and taking a deep, satisfying pull. A second hit and exhale leaves me pleasantly dizzy and muddled; that should do it.

I start the music, and wait for my pet to appear.

Rather quickly, the Doctor arrives at the doorway of my room, still wearing his T-shirt and trousers, but barefoot. I level an imperious glare at him, then grasp the bottle of sparkling wine resting in a bowl of ice on the floor. I pop the cork myself and pour myself a glass. “On your knees,” I say again, taking a sip. It’s cheap pink bubbly, nothing outlandish, but it’s great for the visual and auditory drama.

He comes into the room, and kneels before me once again, linking his hands behind his back. I shake my head. “No,” I tell him, “that’s wrong. You’re not in church.”

A true penitent would never wear such a wicked smile. “Oh, but I am.”

“What is this—a talking dog? Incredible. Come closer.”

He begins to crawl towards me. I snap my fingers and point at the only disarray I’ve allowed to remain in my room—the pile of recently shed clothes beside the bed. “Bring me my pants. Otherwise I know you’ll start chewing on them. Humping them. I like these pants. You’re not allowed to nick them and get them all naff and crusty with your spunk.”

Oh, how his eyes light up at that. I make my face a blank mask so that I don’t start laughing; I’ve got to get my head in the game, or this will just end up being stupid. God, this domination thing is a bit harder than I thought it would be; I’m just not angry enough to sell it. Not to mention the fact that, as I understand it, nothing I do can come from a place of anger, anyway—just strength. I can spin it however I like, but as for me, on the real inside, there can only be respect and trust, and maintaining control, playing him like a priceless instrument. It’s like doing a panto—it’s more than a bit ridiculous, but it's best when everyone on stage stays in their roles, hits their marks, remembers that there’s an audience who wants to believe. When everything is flowing, it’s not just fun—it’s beautiful.

He crawls on his hands and knees to the pile of clothes, roots through them with his nose to uncover my lacy knickers, and picks them up with his lips and teeth. I watch, feigning disinterest, sipping lightly at the wine. He obediently carries them back to me and drops the pants at my feet, then settles back onto his heels, looking up at me with bright eyes, but his smile muted a bit. Getting serious. Getting into the scene.

I think I am, too.

“Give us here,” I command.

He picks up the pants, again with his teeth, and lifts his head, holding them out. I tug them from his mouth, neatly fold them, and slip them into a pocket of the robe. He’s blinking at me; I think he’s just noticed that I’m bottomless under the robe. We've got a loose script, but there's room for improvisation. I bet he can smell me, too; I certainly can.

I set a jar of moisturizing skin cream on the floor between us. “Feet,” I say.

He opens the jar, swipes some cream onto his long, slim fingers, picks up my left foot, and rubs the cream onto the top, smoothing between my toes. While he applies moisturizer to my feet, I take another pull from the bong, and blow the smoke down at his face. He just blinks at it, wrinkling his nose slightly, like a disapproving rabbit. I lift my right foot and push my big toe at his chest. “Now this one,” I say. He obeys without hesitation. I sip a bit more wine, and realize that, now that I’m completely relaxed, I feel a bit bored. “Now, worship my feet,” I tell him. “You’re allowed to tell me how brilliant I am.”

Somehow he doesn’t laugh at me. Instead he runs his thumbs in long, smooth strokes over my feet and up my ankles, rubbing his smooth cheek against my calf. “You truly are glorious,” he replies, without a trace of sarcasm. “You are utterly staggering. So very beautiful in so many ways. Your legs, your feet—”

“My feet?” I can’t help laughing.

“They’re gorgeous. Your legs, your phenomenal arse, your beautiful hair...” Punctuated with noisy kisses on my ankles. “And yes, your feet. Your entire incredible, sweet young body, your golden skin...”

It’s not very golden at this point, with autumn in full swing and me dressed head to toe most days, and the last tan I got months behind me, but it’s still nice to hear. He specifically requested that I not shave my legs, or anything else, in the five weeks since I’ve had my clothes off around him, and he is nuzzling the fuzz on my shins with a seemingly grateful appreciation. Maybe I’ll just stop altogether; I don’t mind it either.

Oh, but I’m losing my sense of my place, of my role in all this; too much relaxation, too much enjoyment of the flattery. I grab one of the lipsticks from their holder on the vanity table’s surface, and begin to apply it; it’s a very slutty hot pink color, one I’d never really wear, but I love the color so much I can’t bring myself to get rid of it. The Doctor glances up at me as I apply the color, and a flash of a grimace passes over his face; I think I just turned him on. I deliberately make a tiny error, smudging the lipstick against the corner of my lips, and use that as an excuse to smack him in the face. “Now look what you made me do, you disgusting, dirty old bugger.” I try to sound cruel, but my voice is low and thick from smoking and alcohol, and also from the tense fire growing between my legs. “Now I’ll have to start all over again.”

The Doctor bows his head, hiding his face, and murmurs abjectly, “I’m sorry, ma'am.”

“I don’t believe you,” I say. I wipe off all of the lipstick with a tissue, and select another tube.

The Doctor very gently kisses my inner thigh, just above the knee. I have to slap him again, harder this time. “Did I say you could kiss me there?” I demand.

“No, Miss Oswald. I’m so very sorry.”

I sit back, spread my legs, and adjust myself in the chair, and my pussy essentially falls open, all lips parting, exposing... oh, just everything. I run two fingers over my mons, adjusting further, and stroke my clit with my pinky, sighing theatrically with pleasure. I stroke myself until my fingertips come away wet, and only then do I smack him again.

“Ms.,” I insist.

And then I turn away, and unfurl the lipstick, and smooth it on. A nice, vivid candy-apple glossy red, this time. I like this one. It’s not the color of my spread-apart cunt, like the last lipstick, but it’s the way my cunt _feels_ , so hot and engorged and aroused it’s almost irritating. I wish he would slap it, good and hard, harder than I could ever do myself.

Maybe next time.

I suck my pinky clean, and sip more wine. The Doctor stares, glazed-eyed, transfixed, lips parted and breathing heavily. “Rub my heels,” I tell him. “They need extra attention.”

He slides between my legs, rubbing the cream into my heels, moaning quietly to himself. His toes curl and straighten, rhythmically, and I can now smell his arousal as well as mine. I can smell the note in his sweat; I can smell his pre-come.

“Is _your_ lipstick out?” I ask with a laugh. I’m more than a little stoned. The music I chose, Amon Tobin, is perfect—slippery, instrumental, bass-heavy, intellectual but intensely physical. It's not music he knows; a nice element to keep control in my court. “Doggy, do you wish you were humping me right now?”

“...Yes, Ms. Oswald.”

Of course, now, he gets it right. The lipstick stretches on my lips as I smile, wide and satisfied. “Touch it and tell me,” I whisper.

The Doctor grasps his crotch and grimaces.

“Well, let me see it,” I add impatiently.

He unlatches the slide at the waistband of his trousers, and pulls them down over his hips, exposing just the tip of his penis. By the color of it, he’s aroused, but I want to know more. “Stand up,” I tell him. Effortlessly, he rises to his feet, which positions his crotch right in front of my face.

I reach out for him and yank his trousers further down. He’s not wearing any pants underneath, and yes, his cock is at least half hard, not attaining erection yet, but full and heavy, flopping thickly along his groin, the tip growing wet before my very eyes. I risk a glance at his face; his eyes are unfocused, cheeks flushed. He thinks I’m going to blow him. As much as I’d love to—as I’d absolutely adore to, right now—that’s not in the plans.

Other things are.

“Back on your knees.”

He sighs. “Yes, Ms. Oswald.”

“You have my permission to lick my vulva. Tongue only. No hands. Keep your hands on the floor.”

Just as I expected, his mouth falls on me and he starts laving me with his tongue like a starving man trying to eat an ice cream before it melts. It feels absolutely marvelous, but I hit him in the face, once, twice, three times before he pulls back, his eyes sparking and wild. “No, no, no! What do you call that?” I shout at him. “You think I want to be mauled like a pizza in a student squat? _Taste_ me. Gently. Delicately. I’m made of spun sugar and you mustn’t melt me with all your slobbering.”

After a moment of stunned silence, he gives a low chuckle and smiles at me. “Yes, Ms. Oswald.”

“Be a good boy. No snatching.” I say that just so that I can feel his laugh against me. I think I may be getting the hang of this.

He changes his approach, too, his tongue washing wide strokes against me as if trying to lick the surface dry, then pointing his tongue to push the tip inside, and stroking that keen point down over my perineum. I try not to moan; I concentrate on wiping off the bright-red lippy and take another shaky swallow of wine. _Not too much,_ he’d advised me; _a bit’s good for lowering inhibitions but more than a glass just dries you out._ I remember out exchange of notes, his spindly, artistic handwriting. _Hit me hard. I can take it._ _I’ll be eating your shitter. If possible I’ll be fucking it._ _Get clean if you can but it won’t stop me. It’s a pleasure you deserve._

My hand falls to my cunt again, and with my fingers, I hold myself open wider for his mouth. “Yes, get in there,” I mutter. His tongue is so far inside he’s licking my G-spot, whether or not it exists; every contact with it is electric, and no matter what he’s tried, I’m gushing. “Yes. Ah. You’re such a lucky boy, you are. It’s the best you’ve ever had, isn’t it?” The Doctor pulls back, stretching his jaw, grimaces, and nods. His hands on the floor next to my feet clench into frustrated fists. I stroke his hair with my free hand, and purr, “The youngest, sweetest, tightest minge you ever tasted. My little girl’s cunt… all hot and yielding but still so, so tight. So virgin schoolgirl tight, isn’t it. I’m so tender. You can’t just shove your hand in there. It would hurt me. Ah… yes… yes it would. A cock bullying its way in there… oh, that would hurt so much. A big, fat, angry dick, tearing me up inside. Mustn’t… mustn’t ever let that happen. It would ruin me. Ruin this… perfect little girl… your own little girl…”

I’m fucking his face. Holding his head still while I grind and thrust against him, while he moans in protest, while he does nothing to get away or stop me. God, it’s wonderful.

I slide my own fingers into my cunt, and push hard against that spot he found inside me, clenching as tight as I can against my own fingers, but I just flutter back open wide again because I’m coming and my hand is drenched. Without hesitation, the Doctor raises his right hand and slides his fingers in too, alongside mine, and it’s not a stretch because I’m so wet and open and eager that two of his fingers and two of mine seem to take up no space at all. But he thrusts his fingers in deep, deeper than mine, and fucks me with them, and his fingers wrap around mine and push them out, and it’s all so busy down there, so full. Before the first orgasm dissipates completely, another one roars into my body, and I shudder and seize in the chair, tears running down my cheeks, my arse bucking against his hand. He holds me up, just off the edge of the chair, his tongue between my buttocks, tongue insistent against my anus, and everything’s so wet down there that he gets his tongue inside there, too. Another peak makes me all but scream. He’s pushed four fingers into my cunt, fucking them gently but insistently; it would take no effort at all for him to push the joint of his thumb in, too, and I realize he’s halfway to his goal to double-fist me, and make me love it.

“Fucking hell!” I scream.

“That’s right,” he replies, pulls his hand out of me, and sucks at my cunt as if trying to drink my fluids down. And then—as I’d been informed, as I’d consented to—he fumbles something from his pocket, and positions it at my slippery arsehole, sets it to vibrating, and pushes it inside.

It’s a slim, eight-centimeter vibrating probe, five centimeters inside me, and the rest taken up by a clever flared base to keep it positioned inside. It’s just a small toy, but it’s one of the most intense sensations I’ve ever experienced, especially combined with the rough flicking of his tongue against the base of my hiding clitoris, against the soft pad of flesh underneath it where most of the useful sensitivity resides. It brings my orgasms to a halt, just from surprise, but now I feel like a violin string tuned too tightly, a high note threatening to snap. It’s all that I can do to remember to give him the signal to continue.

I put both of my hands around his neck, thumbs on the ridges of his trachea, and very lightly squeeze. It’s not a strangle or a choke, just an unmistakable signal.

_more please now_

At once the Doctor springs up from the floor, sweeping me up into his arms as though I weigh nothing. Instead of carrying me to the surface of the bed, he puts me at the edge of it, my body resting on top of it, but my legs on the side, hinged at the waist, my behind in the air, on display. For a moment he’s rough. He pushes my head down, mashing my face against the bedspread, and he slaps my bum twice, once on each cheek, shockingly sharp, sending sizzling waves of arousal up my back and down the backs of my thighs. He pulls both my arms behind my back, holding both wrists in one hand, and with his other hand he pushes his now-exposed cock against me. He’s still wearing his trousers, sort of; I can feel them against my legs. He’s just got them open enough. “Fuck you,” he grunts, pushing against me, trying to penetrate me without guiding his way in.

“Ah! No! Bad dog!” I yell, unable to disguise the fact that I’m laughing.

“Fuck you,” he repeats, and he’s inside. Sudden, perfect, inside me, I’m so grateful. It feels brilliant. Fuck! And the vibrator! I’m not ready. I could never be ready for all of this. It’s amazing. Deeper. Harder. His pelvis locked against mine for a moment, struggling to thrust further inside.

“No, fuck _you_ , stop, daddy, don’t,” I gasp. “Oh, it feels so good, I can’t—

He lets go of my wrists, and grasps my hips instead, “Fuck, bitch. Fuck this fucking—! Tight cunt! Tight fucking cunt!”

It’s a minute, maybe, before he comes. A divine, dizzying, incredible minute of being fucked so very, very hard I can hardly breathe. When he draws up short and his breath shudders, ending in a faint moan, I almost want to cry because I don’t want him to stop. He is so hot against me, our bodies slippery-sweaty, my cunt juice wetting us both from the waist down to the knees.

In the ensuing silence, the cheerful buzz of the vibrator up my arse is hilarious. “Could you—?” I ask.

He pulls his spent cock from me, and then tugs the vibe free. “Suck it clean,” he mutters, dropping it to the bed surface beside me.

“No fear!” I reply indignantly. I turn over to glare at him, sliding the damp mass of my hair to one shoulder. “Bad dog,” I tell him, voice luxurious again. “Very bad puppy indeed.”

He is a magician, and somehow managed to put a condom on somewhere back there without me noticing. He pulls it off, arching an eyebrow at the wad of semen inside it, and drops it in the bin next to my vanity table. Only now does he take his trousers off, folding them and settling them on my chair. The T-shirt stays on. “Come here,” he says, remaining kneeling on the floor. “I know you’re not done. Stand up and let me taste that hot, fucked snatch again.”

I get up and stand over him with my legs spread, and he raises his head to me, holding me steady with one hand on my hip and the other on my calf. As if there’d been no interruption, he resumes licking and sucking my swollen, damp labia, and my now wet and sensitive anal opening. The vibe loosened me, and he exploits that fact with his tongue. I groan helplessly, wavering on my feet. “I don’t think I can get fucked there tonight, daddy,” I murmur.

The Doctor laughs joyfully. “Tired, pet?” He slides his forefinger up my bum, and resumes licking.

“Oh, God... Stop that, now... A bit tired, yeah,” I confess. I push his hand away, his finger out of me. It felt good, but also not what I want. What I want is to lie down and shut my eyes for a bit. “Also, I just… I feel like it should be a thing. Its own thing. Bit ceremonial, you know? You seem to be quite good at that.”

“Understood. And thank you. And yeah, you’re more right than you know. Because in the morning, you’re going to suck my cock, and I’m going to come all over your face, and then I’ll make you breakfast. And after that, I am going to play in your arse until you come harder than you just did. And then I’m going to leave, just before you beg me to bugger your brains out, so you’ll have something to look forward to next time.”

“You’re a complete bastard,” I remark.

He grins up at me. “It gets you off,” he replies.

“Going to stay the night?” I stroke his hair, dip my fingers into my cunt, slide them into his mouth to suck. He nods. “I just have one request, then,” I add, and grasp his jaw until he looks into my eyes, eager for my answer.

“Make sure there’s a next time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Liberating Masturbation - http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6665373-liberating-masturbation
> 
> Amon Tobin - Supermodified http://www.allmusic.com/album/supermodified-mw0000064530
> 
> Thanks for reading! You give me life.


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